EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE 



BEING SKETCHES OF 



PEOPLE IN EUROPE, 



BY 



J. W. DE FOREST. 

AUTHOR OF " ORIENTAL ACQUAINTANCE," &C. 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
V RANK LIN SQUARE. 

1858. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the 3 T ear one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty-eight, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FLORENCE TO VENICE. 

Cause of my Travels. — The Cafe Doner. — Greenough sends me to 
Graefenberg. — The Road to Venice. — A misplaced Station-house. 
— A scanty Purse. — An amphibious Omnibus. — The Albergo d'Eu- 
ropa. — Sight-seeing. — The Cities of tiie Poets Page 5 

CHAPTER II. 

IN VENICE. 

Fellow-countrymen. — A Conversation on Hydropathy. — Difficulty 
with the Police. — D'Arcy's Controversy with the Police. — D'Arcy 
and Horace Greeley. — A dangerous Broadbrim. — The Austrian 
Empire saved. — The terrific Hat of Signor Budd. — Condition of 
Lombardy under Austria 12 

CHAPTER III. 

TO GRAEFENBERG. 

Trieste.— A beautiful Land.— Hanging one's Head up.— Radetzky. 
— The Hotels of Vienna. — Suspicious Politeness. — German in one 
easy Lesson. — Vienna to Herrmanstadt. — Inquiries concerning 
Priessnitz. — A friendly Native. — To Freiwaldau. — The Golden 
Star 22 

CHAPTER IV. 

INSTALLATION AT GRAEFENBERG. 

A Walk to Graefenberg.— A Land of Lunatics.— The Establishment. 
— Bad Odors. — Cheap Accommodations. — An Ox-stable for a 
Bed-room. — A sensitive Russian. — A strong Dinner for weak Stom- 
achs. — The Emperor and the Dough Balls. — Cool Slumbers.... 30 

CHAPTER V. 

FIRST DIFS IN GRAEFENBERG. 

Priessnitz.— The wet Packing.— An awful Cellar.— Scared Patients. 
—Rubbing and Scrubbing.— The Air-bath.— Thin Raiment.— Wa- 
ter-logged.— The Walks and Fountains. — A Patent Digester.— 
Breakfast.— Cups, Canes, and Fanaticism.— A multitudinous Ugli- 
ness 37 

CHAPTER VI. 

CERTAIN GRAEFENBERGERS. 

Franz theBathman.— The human Owl.— The cracked Hungarian.— 



11 CONTENTS. 

The Hamburg Merchant. — Burroughs. — The Prussian Lady. — 
Georgian Hospitality. — Two Graefenherg Veterans. — A rummy 
Hydropath. — Stripping to it. — The pretty Countess Page 46 

CHAPTER VII. 

GRAEFENBERGESSES AND GRAEFENBERGIANISMS. 

Native Beauties. — The Strawberry Girls. — The weekly Balls. — A 
mixed Company. — Eccentric Dancers. — The Priessnitz Family. — 
A Squall at a Ball. — A placable Duelist. — An Englishman's Meth- 
od of cutting a Friend 54 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FAREWELL TO GRAEFENBERG. 

Eccentric Hospitals.— The Curd Cure. — The Straw Cure. — The Wine 
Cure. — A lively Patient. — Freezing out an Inflammation of the 
Lungs. — Ducking a Fever and Ague. — Priessnitz's Prudence. — 
A remarkable Cure. — My own Case. — Farewell to Graefen- 
herg 63 

CHAPTER IX. 

DIFONNE, OR MERMANIIOOD IN FRANCE. 

Short Account of a long Journey. — A disappointed Sight Seer. — Ge- 
neva to Divonne. — Mrs. Parley the Porter. — The Doctor. — Poche's 
Dictionary. — Trompette. — The Establishment. — Dinner and its 
Devourers. — First Bath at Divonne. — Francois the Bathman. — 
Learning French 60 

CHAPTER X. 

TASTIIIES IN DIVONNE. 

A Quadrille. — Cat and Rat. — A French Game. — The Juba. — A rev- 
erend Double-shuffler. — Ida. — Morning Service. — Des Mcthodistes. 
— A strong-minded Lady. — The Free Kirk on the Continent. — 
A reverend Sabbath-breaker. — Scenery about Divonne. — Sunsets 
and Sunrises. — Nyon and Maitre Jacques. — Catholic versus Prot- 
estant 80 

, CHAPTER XL 

PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 

Aristocratic Invalids. — Observations on Nobilities. — The Count of 
Divonne. — The Baron de Pres. — An Italian Hero. — Threatenings 
of a Duel. — Male Kisses. — French Opinions of English Manners. 
— Winter. — Making Tracks. — Learning French. — My Teacher. — 
Friendly Warnings. — The Coup d'etat. — A fugitive Republican. — 
Stirring Reports. — Tyranny triumphant. — The Elections. — A lib- 
eral Lawyer and an illiberal Prefect. — The French Peasantry.. 91 

CHAPTER XII. 

WINTER IN DIVONNE. 

Snows and Mists. — The Northers. — Ennui. — Concerning Trompette. 



CONTENTS. iii 

— Concerning our Sheep. — Concerning Monsieur Trocon. — French 
Egotism. — Trocon's Fight for Liberty. — His Duel. — His Quarrel 
with the Priest. — A French Theorist. — Polemics on Religion and 
Politics. — The Immorality of Retailing Page 108 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SPRING IN DIVONNE. 

New Arrivals. — Count de G .—Arrest Number One.— Arrest 

Number Two. — Arrest Number Three. — Russian Nobles. — A 
speechless Princeling. — American Sympathies with Russians. — 
Prince Georges on Slavery. — The Princess Georges on Ditto.— Re- 
publicanism in Russia 123 

CHAPTER XIV. 

STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 

Stories of Travel. — Prince Eugene's Story of the Haunted Attic. — 
The Doctor's Story of the Haunted Room. — The Story of the Bur- 
ied Treasure of Man try 135 

CHAPTER XV. 

MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 

Conversations on Mesmerism. — The magnetic Button of Mr. Rob- 
son. — A conscious Somnambulist. — Jolivet's Diplomacy. — Mesme- 
ric Experiences of a Russian Lady. — A second-sighted Servant- 
girl. — The Somnambula of Nyon. — Her Prophecy. — My Departure 
from Divonne 14? 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A CHEAP AVATERING-PLACE. 

Up Lake Leman. — A Patriotic American. — The Black and Blue 
Gentleman and his Black Trunk. — American Ignorance of foreign 
Tongues. — First Dinner at Bex. — A singular Lover. — The Irish 
Doctor and his remarkable Over-coat. — Moral Instruction to Youth. 
— The Nobility of Berne. — A Dialogue on Matrimony. — The Doc- 
tor's Farewell 163 

CHAPTER XVII. 

DINNERS AND DINERS AT PARIS. 

An old Comrade. — Of the Death of Priessnitz. — A Boarding-house. 
— Mrs. Keene. — Mrs. Keene's Economy. — Mrs. Keene's Brother. — 
Father Pipelet and Wife. — Making French easy. — A Tour through 
Parisian Restaurants. — The Cafe Jouffroy. — Superannuated Beaux. 
— A Table d'hote. — A fine old Gallic Gentleman. — Concerning 
Horsebeef. — A jolly Baron. — A Recollection of Beethoven... 177 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 

The Charm of Florence. — The Cafe Doney. — Breakfast. — Long Giu- 
seppe. — Enrichetta the Fioraia, — An envious Italiana. — Scissor- 



IV CONTENTS. 

ing a Woman. — The Institution of Flower-girls. — Cafe Prices in 
Florence. — The Cafe Wital. — Dinner at the Luna. — Bargaining 
with a Coachman. — To the Cascine. — A Music-day. — Beatrice. 
—The Crucifixion Page 191 

CHAPTER XIX. 

CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 

Confessions of an Idler. — A Florentine Day. — Fruits and Wines. — 
A Florentine Evening. — Translating. — Loungers at the Cafe Do- 
ne y. — Viardot. — Disappointed Love. — Buonacosta. — A Conversa- 
tion on Fortune-hunting. — Bartoldi. — Cheap Dandyism. — A Cos- 
mopolite 208 

CHAPTER XX. 

ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 

John Bull Abroad. — Major O'Rourke. — Philosophy under Calami- 
ties. — A new Remedy for a Broken Heart. — Florentine Duels. — 
A Neapolitan Hero. — A Duel at Pisa. — Punishment of Dueling. — 
A Four-legged Florentine Gentleman. — A Clever Coachman. — 
Tout de suite. — A sacrilegious Blunder 222 

CHAPTER XXL 

MARIA AND HER STORIES. 

Maria of Sienna. — Her Mother's Adventure with a Witch. — The 
Story of the Demon Goat.— The Story of the Midnight Mass.— The 
Adventure of Martino with Satanasso. — Maria's Bible. — The Sac- 
rament of Columbus at Palos 235 

CHAPTER XXII. 

AL MEZZOGIORNO. 

Florence to Rome. — Roman Bandits and Papal Dragoons. — Mine 
Host on the Monte Pincio. — Kissing the Pope's Toe. — Pio Nono's 
Opinion of Mustaches. — Tyranny in the Roman States. — A Canine 
Exemplar. — Prospects of Italian Liberty. — Continental domestic 
Architecture. — Italian Women. — Italian Lovers. — Manly Tears. 
— An Italian Reception. — An Italian Evening 251 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 

Man's Creations his Acquaintance. — Disappointed Expectations. — 
Sensuous Influence of" Florence. — The Florentine Palaces. — The 
Campanile. — The Duomo. — Tomb of Michael Angelo. — The Saint 
George of Donatello. — The David of Michael Angelo. — The Mer- 
cury of Giovanni di Bologna. — Canova. — Tenerani. — The Descent 
from the Cross. — The Angel of the Last Judgment. — Emotional 
Life at Rome. — The Pantheon. — The Tombs of the Scipios. — 
Conclusion 265 



EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

FLORENCE TO VENICE. 



Puesued by the fretting enmity of a monotonous 
invalidism, I one day reached the triple saloon, the 
white pillars, and the marble-covered tables of the Cafe 
Doney in Florence. I was hob-a-nobbing with Gait, 
the sculptor, over a couple of ice-creams, when my 
companion looked up from his spoon, and addressed an 
individual who stood before us with a " Good evening, 
Mr. Greenough." 

I rose and shook hands with a gentleman of agree- 
able air, though reserved and commanding, whose feat- 
ures were high and fine, whose eyes were of a stern 
gray, and whose full beard and mustache gave him 
all his natural grave manliness of aspect. Drawing a 
furred glove from his white taper fingers, Greenough 
sat down by us, and began to urge me with his rich 
voice and earnest manner to exchange the warm 
breezes of Italy for the cool waters of Graefenberg. 
Hydropathy, he thought, was the temple of health, and 
Priessnitz was its high priest, or rather its deity. He 
had spent eighteen months in the establishment at 
Graefenberg, beholding in that time marvelous cures, 
not on strangers only, but also on members of his own 
family. So fervent was his faith, that I finally accept- 



6 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ed it as my own, and was persuaded to look for my 
lost health in the rivulets of Silesia, as Ponce de Leon 
sought his departed youth in Floridian fountains. 

In the person of Neuville, a Virginian looker-on in 
Florence, and also a sufferer from some of the chronic 
nagrancies of nature, I found a fellow-traveler and co- 
disciple in hydropathy. When we bade Greenough 
good-by, he gave us a letter of introduction to Priess- 
nitz. Thanks be unto the merciful angel who veils 
from us futurity ! for it would have been a sombre 
parting had we known that we were never to see this 
fine artist and gentleman again. Before I returned to 
Florence, delirium and fever had torn his cunning 
hands from the marble, and swept his poetic spirit 
away to other visions than those of earthly beauty. 

Through Bologna, Ferrara, Pavia, glancing from the 
prison of Tasso to the banquet-rooms of Este, from the 
chamber of Parasina to the dungeon of Hugo, from 
wonder-halls of painting to cathedrals of aged solem- 
nity, we passed over the mountains and the broad, rich 
plains which separate Florence from Venice. A rail- 
road station now puffs its disrespectful smoke inter- 
mittently over the lagoons which glitter around the 
dethroned Queen of the Adriatic, and makes itself es- 
pecially ridiculous by reminding the traveler of Vesu- 
vius breathing out its fire and vapor over the Bay of 
Naples. It was twilight by the time we got out of 
the cars, and dim evening before we emerged from a 
passport -office looking toward the distant lights of 
Venice. Gondoliers bellowing from black gondolas 
wanted to carry us to the city, like undertakers with 
floating coffins desirous of conveying us to some sea- 



FLORENCE TO VENICE. 7 

deep cemetery. There was at first a contest among 
these amphibious gentry as to whether we should take 
a gondola or an omnibus ; but, unable to agree among 
themselves, or perhaps out of sheer good-nature, they 
finally left the matter to our decision. When I tell 
the poetic reader that we selected the omnibus, he will 
probably sniff with contempt and resolve to cut our 
acquaintance. But let him grant us his patience ; we 
had financial reasons for our choice : we were as hard 
up for cash as Mother Hubbard's dog for a bone. 
Having miscalculated traveling necessities at starting, 
our united pockets now contained the residuum of one 
zwanziger, or about fourteen cents. We might have 
flourished our letters of credit, to be sure ; but the gon- 
doliers would have understood their value as little as 
that of the belles-lettres. The 'bus was half price ; 
the 'bus, we thought, would roll us straight to the ho- 
tel ; and so, in sultry disappointment, we declared for 
the prosaic 'bus. Off went our trunks with the agility 
of chairs and tables under the influence of old witches 
or modern spirits ; and, struggling after them through 
the noisy, eddying crowd, we reached a long covered 
boat, which looked as much like a gondola as a horse 
looks like a pony. 

"Enter, gentlemen, enter; take your places under 
the canopy," said the master boatman, pointing with a 
warning finger to heavy clouds floating low in the twi- 
light air. We got in cautiously, as people get into all 
tight places, knocked our knees together, knocked our 
hats together, and took the latter off. 

" This isn't an omnibus," said Neuvillc, looking me 
gravely in the face at the distance of six inches. 



8 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

"No; but I suppose we shall find it on the other 
side of the ferry, if this is a ferry." 

" But what if we have to pay the ferry extra ?" 

"Can't do it. That's their look-out. We must 
tell them they should have thought of that before, and 
have arranged matters better for gentlemen who only 
had a zwanziger." 

Such was our desperate conversation, while trunks 
and individuals were being rammed into our pen until 
we were as close as little pigs riding to market. The 
boatmen took their places, and we glided out of the 
turmoil of gondolas, gondoliers, passengers, and police- 
men. Night had fallen by this time, sullen and star- 
less, changing Venice into shapeless masses of shadow 
which sat mysteriously on dusky waters. A pattering 
of rain-drops, the monotonous dip of paddles, quick 
cries of men who passed us unseen like warning but 
invisible spectres, were the only jarrings on the won- 
derful silence. We knew that we were threading the 
avenues of a great city, and therefore the darkness ap- 
peared more ghostly, the stillness more supernatural ; 
therefore did it seem as if we were traversing no city 
of upper earth, but rather those " caverns measureless 
to man which run down to the sunless sea." Through 
the Grand Canal without knowing it, between rows of 
lofty palaces without beholding them, under the Kialto 
without a consciousness of its shadow, we passed noise- 
lessly, blindly, like those who are ferried over the river 
of death. I felt a vague melancholy, an ineffable sor- 
row stealing over me, as if I were riding as chief 
mourner at my own funeral, and wondering whose turn 
would come next. 



FLORENCE TO VENICE. 9 

"It seems to me that it takes a great while to get 
to the omnibus," was my remark. 

"I don't believe there is any omnibus," replied 
Neuville, with the indignation of outraged good faith. 

Presently the bow of the boat grated against some 
stony obstacle, and we became conscious that our 
watery bier had ceased to advance. 

"Behold us arrived," said the boat-master. "Be- 
hold the Albergo d'Europa." 

I crushed my hat in the little doorway, straightened 
myself up, and bounded on to a broad flight of steps 
wet with the rippling of the canal. Above me rose 
gigantic stories of a palace front fretted with columns 
and pilasters, and casting red glares of light outward 
through deep windows and open balconies. Before it 
slept sombre waters, flickering here and there under 
lamp-flashes or the sparkle of a lost star-beam, and 
spreading solemnly away into an intensity of darkness 
and mystery, from some unknown shore of which shone 
other lights, as of fairy islands unattainable by human 
presences. 

"Is this the hotel?" I questioned. 

"Yes, gentlemen," responded a head-waiter in a 
white waistcoat; "this is the Hotel of Europe, at 
your service." 

" But where is the omnibus ?" was the inquiry of 
my undiminished perplexity. 

"You have just got out of the omnibus, gentlemen. 
That boat there is the omnibus." 

" Oh," said I, turning to Neuville, "I thought that 
was the omnibus all the while." 

"Of course you did," replied Neuville, scornfully; 
A 2 



10 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

"it looks as much like an omnibus as an alligator 
looks like an elephant." 

Having stared anew at the maritime vehicle, we 
told the waiter to pay for our passage, and walked 
into the hotel, wiser than before on the subject of 
omnibuses. 

I have no intention of describing Venice at length, 
inasmuch as it has been visited by other travelers 
equally well provided with Murrays. We sailed in 
gondolas, visited the Arsenal, made an excursion to 
the Lido, paid a boatman to sing Tasso and love- 
songs under the Rialto, and did various other things 
appropriate to the locality. We likened the fretted 
architecture of the palaces to a filigree of marble ; 
Saint Mark's, with its many domes and colors, to a 
mass of gigantic bubble-work ; the rich canvases of 
the Venetian painters to gorgeous sunsets hanging in 
the walls of the west ; the black gondolas, vanishing 
down watery avenues, to hearses borne along the dim 
naves of mighty cathedrals. 

THE ISLAND CITY. 

The midnight mariner with wondering eyes 

Beholds a city on the Adrian waves, 
Whose palaces from ocean depths arise, 

Like saintly shining souls from earthly graves. 

The moonlight glorifies its vaulted fanes, 
Its proud pavilions and its dizzy towers ; 

The lamplight from its arched windows rains 
Along the sea in ardent, trembling showers. 

No whirring wheels, no clanging coursers sweep 
Beneath the shadows of its princely piles ; 

But sombre barks, inaudible as sleep, 

Glide down the silence of sea-paven aisles. 



FLORENCE TO VENICE. 11 

Discovered through its air of lucent balm, 
Though near, it seems mysterious and far ; 

Its life is beautiful, unearthly, calm — 
An angel city of some sinless star. 

So shines that splendid city of delight 

Which poets build on Fancy's magic surge ; 

Yet richer far, more delicately bright 

Than cloud-wrought cities on the sunset's verge. 

Most musical the sea around it chimes, 
Eesponsive to the mind-harps in its halls ; 

Most fragrant breezes from all starry climes 
Uplift the standards on its shining walls. 

And poet souls in barks of amethyst 

Sail clown the ripple of those tides of love, 

And feel their foreheads gently crowned and kiss'd 
By unseen angels bending from above. 

joyous palaces ! heroic towers ! 

O trustful oratories ! yearning spires ! 
Seraphic limnings, fervent-hued as flowers ! 

Eternal sculptures, passionate as fires ! 

Who leaveth earth ? Who voyageth with me? 

Who lifteth sail in Poesy's rich air, 
To search Imagination's wonder-sea, 

And find the poets' Island City there ? 



12 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER II. 

IN VENICE. 

About a week after our arrival in Venice, while pa- 
trolling the colonnades of the Piazza San Marco, Neu- 
ville and I met a couple of fellow-countrymen, Irwine 
and Burroughs, Southerners, whom we had previously 
seen at Florence. As we had a stomach apiece, all 
empty at the moment, we adjourned for conversation 
to a restaurant handily situated in one of the palace- 
fronted edifices which, on three sides, confront and en- 
noble the piazza. 

" We are going to Graefenberg," said Neuville over 
his macaroni a la Milanese. 

"We are going to Graefenberg," echoed Irwine over 
a glass of vino rosso. 

"We shall take the cure," continued Neuville. "I 
suppose you try it also." 

" Not a bit of it," replied Irwine. " Priessnitz will 
have to talk himself to death before he inveigles me 
into his tubs. I know all about those water privi- 
leges." 

" Oh, you have been through the mill, then?" 

" Not such a blockhead, if you please. But I have 
seen other people in the suds, and was satisfied with 
the simple spectacle. I went to an American water- 
cure with a friend, and was incautious enough to stay 
over-night. They stirred me up in the morning, and 
decoyed me, while I was half asleep, into a wet sheet. 



IN VENICE. 13 

I got out of it as quick as I could, and went off at a 
canter, in hopes of getting warm once more in my life. 
Came to a spring at last, among the brushwood ; a 
little dirty spring, with footmarks in the mud all about 
it. There was a sick minister and his wife, with their 
tin cups in their hands, looking at the spring and look- 
ing at the mud. The minister was very small in the 
legs and very much wrapped up about the head ; gave 
a fellow the idea of a fork standing on its tines. I 
thought of two chickens on a frosty morning staring 
at the snow, with one leg tucked up among the feath- 
ers. At last we all stepped gingerly into the mud, 
like cats, drank more than we wanted, and went off up 
the hills in very low spirits. When I got back to the 
house, I found the little minister and his wife, as chilly 
as ever, surveying the breakfast table. It was a long 
pine table without any cloth, a row of white plates set 
like buttons along the edges, with pieces of brown 
bread and tumblers of milk between them. * My dear,' 
says the minister, * it looks like a very cold breakfast 
for such a sharp morning.' 'Oh dear me!' says she, 
' I suppose it's good for us.' I ate what I could get, 
and then took the first conveyance out of the place. 
So, you see, I know what you fellows are coming to. 
I prefer to die without suffering so much. You might 
as well kill a man outright as starve and freeze him 
to death." 

At the expiration of a fortnight in Venice we went 
to the police-office to demand the right of departure. 
All over Italy, excepting perhaps Piedmont, the police 
have the same troublesome habit of taking away a trav- 
eler's passport when he enters a city, and obliging him, 



14 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

if lie stays over a week, to procure what they call a 
jpajper of residence, or paper of surety. At the end 
of his sojourn he swaps off his carta di residenza for 
his passport, gives a little something to boot most 
probably, and is allowed to go in peace. I knew very 
well of the existence of this unprofitable custom, but 
somehow forgot it at Venice, and so never applied at 
all for the said residential papers. Accordingly, when 
Neuville and I appeared at the police-office, and quiet- 
ly demanded our passports without any thing to ex- 
change for them but our forgetful heads, the officer 
nearly burst with wrath and astonishment. 

"How!" he thundered, nearly petrifying us with the 
ferocity of his green spectacles; "no paper of resi- 
dence ! I should like to know what this means. How 
dare you live a whole fortnight in Venice without a 
paper of residence ?" 

We explained to him that we did not know what it 
meant ourselves ; that we did not dare to live so any 
longer, and that we wanted to get away and go some- 
where else as soon as possible. He seemed utterly 
dumbfounded by our apologies, and indeed by the 
whole circumstance, which w T as perhaps unparalleled 
in his official experience, and was certainly a stigma 
on the police of the city. He gave us the passports, 
however, after shaking his head at us long enough to 
upset his brains, and perhaps went addle-pated before 
bedtime under the belief that the world was full of 
Yankees who had no papers of residence. 

We were rather lucky in getting off with so little 
trouble. Had we been Englishmen instead of Amer- 
icans, we might have gone farther and fared worse ; 



IN A'ENICE. 15 

that is, been turned out of Austria altogether, or, pos- 
sibly, expressed on to some unpleasant Hungarian pris- 
on. Perfidious Albion was just then in great disfa- 
vor with the government of the Caesars, which accord- 
ingly delighted in entangling and thwarting those 
traveling Britons who happened to touch its mighty 
spider-web of watchfulness. An amusing Irishman 
named D'Arcy, whom I met at Dresden, related to me 
how he had a difference of opinion with the Venetian 
police concerning his projected journey from Venice to 
Vienna. "We can not give you a permit to go to 
Vienna," said the official; "we shall make out your 
passport for Milan." 

"But I have just come from Milan," returned the 
surprised D'Arcy. "I have seen Milan, and seen it 
enough." 

"Very possibly ; but we want you to go back there. 
It is extremely suspicious that you are so anxious to 
go to Vienna." 

" Not at all. I want to go to Vienna because I want 
to see it. Every body wants to see Vienna." 

"But what makes you so resolute to see Vienna? 
What is your particular motive — your object ?" 

" Oh, I want to see it because it is such a beautiful 
city, and because it has such beautiful palaces in it, 
and because it has such beautiful women in it. Ev- 
ery body tells me about the beautiful women there ; 
and, begging your pardon for taking such a liberty, 
I shall die if you disappoint me." 

The official looked monstrously puzzled, for every 
one was on the broad grin, and a certain suspect Hun- 
garian was treasonably enjoying himself in a hearty 



16 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

laugh behind his traveling cap. At last he ungracious- 
ly appended his valuable autograph to the passport ; 
and the dear, darling D'Arcy, as his friends called him, 
went off triumphantly to see the pretty women of 
Vienna, among whom, as I afterward heard, he made 
no trifling sensation. 

"I must tell you, by the way, of a dispute that I 
had with a countryman of yours," said D'Arcy to Bur- 
roughs and myself. "I was sitting in an Italian ho- 
tel, close by a party of Americans, when one of them 
declared that Old England was nigh her downfall. 
* I'll take you up on that,' said I. ' I'll meet you,' said 
he. So we had it there, back and forth, for an hour 
together, without convincing each other a particle. He 
gave me his card when we separated. His name was 
Greeley, and I heard that he was the editor of a large 
New York paper." 

"Greeley! I'm glad you pitched into him," said 
Burroughs, who hated England himself, but who, as a 
Southerner, hated Greeley more. 

Returning to my subject, I observe that stories in- 
numerable might be collected of ludicrous encounters 
between travelers and the Continental police, especially 
that of Austria. The broad brims of wide-awakes have 
repeatedly afforded a spacious battle-field for these two 
antagonistic classes of society. A friend of mine jour- 
neyed in one of those revolutionary head-dresses from 
Florence to Vienna without molestation ; but it was 
not permitted that he should brave the Austrian eagle 
in its nest with impunity, and that watchful fowl made 
a triumphant peck at him when he least expected it. 
Taken into custody in the street by a spy in citizen 



IN VENICE, 17 

costume, aided by a couple of soldiers, he was marched 
to a police-office, with the proof of his political turpi- 
tude on his devoted head. The chief of the office got 
into a fearful rage at sight of him — not so much because 
of the hat, as because it was late, and dinner was wait- 
ing. They were about to secure the government for 
one night against the seditious broad-brim by locking 
it up, and locking its owner up with it, when a friend, 
who had witnessed the capture, arrived with a valet 
de place from the hotel just in time to make expla- 
nations, and save our countryman from repenting of 
wide-awakes in the night-watches of an Austrian 
prison. 

"It was all a mistake, then?" asked the officer. 

"Oh! quite a mistake." 

"You had no evil intentions in wearing a broad- 
brimmed hat ?" 

"None at all ; not an intention in the world." 

"Well, go then. But buy another hat. Do not 
be seen again in the streets with such a hat as this, 
or the consequences may be very serious." 

My friend bought a steeple-crown before breakfast 
the next morning, and thus, for a second time, was the 
Austrian empire saved from destruction. 

A farce on the same subject as the above was played 
at Milan, partly in my own presence. Presenting my 
passport at the police-office of that city, I met an En- 
glish acquaintance, a capital fellow named Budd, who, 
with a look of brazen impenitence, was receiving an 
admonition concerning the radical character of his hat. 
" Good-morning, Signor Budd," said the officer from 
behind his desk, leaning forward, and looking search- 



18 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ingly, though civilly, into the broad, handsome, good- 
humored, but determined face which confronted him. 
" We sent for you, signor, to speak to you about 
your hat — the one you have in your hand at this 
moment." 

"It is worthy of the honor," said Budd; "it is a 
good hat." And he held up the battered, dusky- white 
broad-brim with an air of affectionate admiration. 

" Precisely, signor ; very useful, I have no doubt. 
But it may bring you into trouble. You are aware, 
doubtless, that its form and color are both unusual ; 
you are aware that hats of that species have been the 
badge of a certain disorderly and treasonable party. 
You have also a full, long beard, which is equally a 
badge of the said party. The whole marks you as 
singular, and attracts an unpleasant degree of popular 
notice." 

"But," responded Budd, "I am not an Italian. I 
have nothing to do with Italian politics. I wear such 
a hat and beard as suit my style of beauty and my 
notions of convenience." 

"Exactly, signor. You have nothing to do with 
politics ; we know it well. We know all your tastes 
and all your haunts. You went into the country 
yesterday. You were at the Cafe delle Colonne the 
evening before. You were at the house of Signora 
Bellina the evening before that. You have been 
watched ever since you reached Milan, and we could 
tell you where you have been and what you have done 
on every single day. We now know that you are not 
a dangerous individual, and we wish to persuade you 
to avoid the appearance of being such. We have no 



IN VENICE. 19 

intentions against your beard, signor ; you are welcome 
to keep it. But we would counsel you to discontinue 
wearing that hat : it would be so easy to lay it aside, 
and might save you so much trouble." 

"Very well," said Budd ; "but, if I am to change 
my dress at the suggestion of the government, I want 
some particular directions as to the new style which I 
am to adopt. Just give me a written order specifying 
the kind of hat which I am to wear, and I am ready 
to obey it. But I must have the order. I want to 
send it to England ; it shall be published in Punch 
or the Times. I could get five pounds for such a 
paper in England." 

The officer was nettled, and looked angrily at the 
row of white teeth which glittered maliciously through 
Budd's black mustaches. Controlling his temper, 
however, he went on with his admonition, although 
not in quite so composedly gracious a tone as before. 
"Signor, we can not give you such an order; it would 
be absurd. We leave the matter to your own sense 
of propriety and your prudence. But what we spe- 
cially complain of is not so much the hat itself as your 
manner of wearing it. You wear it turned up, and 
turned down, and twisted, and cocked, in a style which 
attracts a great deal of attention, and is particularly 
obnoxious." 

" Oh, I wear it according to circumstances," said 
Budd. " I will explain all that to you (sticking it on 
his head). Now, when the sun is on my right, I turn 
it down so (hauling the right brim down) ; and when 
the sun is on my left, I turn it down so (a haul at the 
left brim) ; and when I want to take a general view 



20 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

of the country, I turn it up all around (brim cocked 
up throughout its entire circumference) ; and when 
the wind blows, I slap it down on the top for safety 
(a smart pat on the yielding crown). 

"But just give me an order how I shall wear my 
hat. It would be better than the other. The Times 
would give me twenty pounds for such a document as 
that." 

" Signor," said the officer, losing all patience, and 
beginning to stammer, "you will find, perhaps, that 
this is no jesting matter. You had better consider it 
seriously, and answer us seriously. We are advising 
you what is for your own good, and what may save 
you a great deal of annoyance. Think of it again, 
and see if you do not come to our opinion." 

In short, they had a long, and, in part, a rather 
stormy discussion, some of which I heard, while the 
rest Budd related to me afterward. In the end, he 
had the moderation to take the officer's advice, and 
lay aside his wide-awake while he remained on Aus- 
trian territory. It is a fact that the obnoxious head- 
dress excited no little popular attention ; all the more, 
doubtless, because it shaded keen black eyes, a jetty 
beard, and a visage remarkably Italian in feature. 
People stopped to gaze at him as he passed along the 
streets, and gathered round him by the dozen when he 
halted before any object of a tourist's interest, staring 
with an earnestness almost of expectation, as if they 
saw before them Mazzini or Garibaldi about to cry, 
44 Viva la repubblica /" 

It is small consolation to the traveler who is pes- 
tered by these impertinent regulations to observe that 



IN VENICE. 21 

they fall with double force upon the natives. It makes 
him indignant, rather, to see a foreign yoke lying upon 
so fair a country, so nobly fashioned for empire, and 
to see the sons of that country so slavishly submissive. 
But, on the other hand, he can not help acknowledging 
that in hardly any other similar expanse of Italy is life 
so respected, property so safe, and land so well tilled 
as in the Austrian Lombardy. The people are gov- 
erned sternly, but not stupidly; they are not allowed 
to think for themselves, but they are encouraged to 
work for themselves ; and this is not visible certainly 
under the Italic rule of Pio Nono and King Bomba. 
Venice is, indeed, decayed and decaying ; but such 
must have been its destiny, no matter who were its 
rulers ; for its riches and power necessarily flew away 
on the vanishing wings of its commerce; and the 
Austrian s are hardly more responsible for its decline 
than for the fall of Babylon or the death of the first 
Cheops. 



22 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER III. 

VENICE TO GRAEFENBERG. 

A tolerable steam-boat carried us to Trieste, which 
I observed to be a newish city, affluent in ships and 
store-houses, and lively with a rapid circulation of dust 
and people about its broad streets. In freshness, 
movement, and an appearance of growth, it reminded 
me of Marseilles, and even of sea-port towns in my 
own nourishing country. 

Coming in late at night, we got so little sleep that 
it was hardly worth taking, and by ten in the morning 
were bundled off in a rickety, uncomfortable omnibus 
for Vienna. A few hours of leisurely ascent brought 
us into one of the most beautiful highland districts in 
the world, full of abrupt turfy hills, rocky precipices, 
dells spotted with thickets, lucent rivulets, endless 
diversifications of feature in short, all shaded into fine 
variety by an abounding verdure of dark, tapering 
firs, exactly suited in color and contour to the Alpine 
character of the scenery. I would describe this lovely 
land more minutely, but that I was crushed by sleep, 
and rode through a large portion of it with closed eyes, 
and mouth perhaps open ; so that I have only an indis- 
tinct recollection of its sharply-sketched landscapes, as 
if I had seen them through a mist, or a pair of some 
grandmother's spectacles. Once, as my head jolted 
about unpleasantly, I partially awoke, and stuck it 



VENICE TO GRAEFENBERG. 23 

through a strap which depended from the roof of the 
vehicle for the support of passengers' elbows. There 
it hung an hour or two, like a head cut off for a trophy, 
until I aroused thoroughly, and wanted it again to look 
out of the window. 

We reached Laybach, changed our abominable dili- 
gence for a rail-road car, and thenceforward journeyed 
most comfortably. On the way we learned that Ra- 
detzky, the victor of Novara, the greatest living gen- 
eral of Austria, was in the train with us, hastening to 
a convention of the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian 
monarchs at Olmutz. At Gratz, a fine large city, the 
station was surrounded by an extremely well-dressed 
multitude, with many beautiful women in its ranks, 
all eyes and mouth to welcome the great man. Pres- 
ently there rose a shout, signifying that he was visible, 
and we leaned out of the windows to share the spectacle 
of heroism in a white coat. A very little old hero he 
was, with very white mustaches, very sore eyes, and a 
very wizened appearance generally, as if much dried 
up by the hot fires of musketry to which he had been 
exposed. After standing a moment in full view on the 
platform of the car, he caught hold of the iron guard 
and made a little boy's jump to the ground. There 
was a great hurrah, as if the Gratzonians were de- 
lighted beyond control to see him keep his legs with- 
out assistance. I felt no inclination to quarrel with 
them on the score of their enthusiasm, for Radetzky 
is said to be as kind-hearted as he is brave, able, and 
energetic. 

They have good hotels at Vienna, glorious coffee, 
bread unequaled otherwheres, and the most artistic 



24 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

soups. We were strengthening ourselves in the eating 
saloon of that most recommendable house, the Rbmis- 
chen Kaiser, when we were addressed by a stranger, a 
tall, genteel, middle-aged man, with a newspaper in his 
hand, who was lounging near us at a table from which 
the remnants of his dinner had just been removed. 
"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said in good English, 
marked by only a slight foreign accent, " excuse me 
for interrupting you ; but I see that you are Americans, 
and I am most happy to meet you. I have spent many 
years in your country, and always feel, in addressing an 
American, as if I were speaking to a compatriot. Still, 
I ani, a German ; not an Austrian, however, but from 
Baden. I must observe, notwithstanding, that I am 
acquainted in Vienna — widely acquai: „ed. Allow me 
to ask if you stay long here." 

" Only a week, probably," said one of us, while the 
others stared in wonder at this outpouring of courteous 
communicativeness. 

"lam sorry for that, as I should take great pleas- 
ure in presenting you to some of the first classes 
here," continued our magnificent friend. "I have 
many acquaintances among the upper ranks of society 
here, who would be most happy to receive any of your 
countrymen introduced by me. By the way, I am sur- 
prised that so few Americans ever select Germany as 
a place of residence. There are in the United States 
many families, with moderate incomes, who could make 
their means go much farther and include many more 
luxuries here than there. Baden, for example, would 
be an admirable place of residence. A court, if you 
care for such things ; a very respectable theatre ; an 



VENICE TO GRAEFENBERG. 25 

Opera even ; baths and society ; galleries and univer- 
sities better than your own, within easy reach ; all, 
too, at a wonderfully small expense. An American 
family might live there comfortably, educate its chil- 
dren thoroughly, learn French and German well, and 
amuse itself very pleasantly, for less money than it 
would cost it to live at home unamused and only half 
instructed." 

In this politely patronizing style our friendly un- 
known discoursed for half an hour, and then, with el- 
egant sadness that he should probably see us no more, 
took his departure. "What do you think of him?" 
said one. " He is a humbug," said another. " He is 
a spy," said a third. " He is a professional gambler," 
said a fourth. Young America, it must be observed, 
was in this case quite young, for which reason it flung 
out its verdicts with a vigor amounting perhaps to un- 
charity. Yet it had reason for its suspicions : it was 
in a land tainted with espionage ; in a community 
broken out with rouge et noir. Unknown, too, in Eu- 
rope, is such hospitable confidence as this, of introduc- 
ing to the best society strangers who bring no other 
recommendation than the cut of their coats and faces. 

The German is acquired with astonishing facility, 
and Neuville proved it. Irwine, the only one of us 
who had any previous intimacy with that tongue, went 
to the principal theatre to hear a German tragedy. 
Neuville accompanied him — not with any Babelish 
fancy of listening to an unknown speech, but to get an 
idea of the arrangement of an Austrian theatre, and the 
appearance of a Vienna audience. On their return they 
were in a state of equal enthusiasm as to the excellence 

B 



26 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

of the scenery, the power of the actors, the ingenuity 
of the plot, and the sublimity of the language. 

" Why, good heavens, Neuville," said Irwine, "what 
in the world did you understand ?" 

" Oh," replied Neuville, with infinite gravity, " I 
heard some fellows saying 'Ifein Gott P " 

We spent eight days among the galleries, churches, 
palaces, gardens, and promenades of Vienna, all of which 
time my great hurry to reach Graefenberg compels me 
to bury in oblivion. Once more on the rail-road, we 
never halted until we were in Herrmanstadt, a village 
some thirty miles short of our moist destination. It 
was Saturday night when we landed at the little hotel 
on the public square, and we spent Sunday in staring 
at the huge boots and gorgeous short petticoats of the 
peasant bucks and belles. As Irwine and Burroughs 
still hesitated about taking the cure, we sent for the 
landlord, and questioned him concerning Priessnitz's 
reputation in the surrounding country. He did not 
know ; he could not say any thing certain ; Priessnitz 
had cured some people and hurt some people ; but he 
had a friend who had been there, and would tell us all 
about it. 

In the evening came his friend — a tall, thin, long- 
nosed young German, who spoke English comprehen- 
sibly, having learned it, as he said, from his British 
fellow-patients at Graefenberg. With the universal 
good-humor of his countrymen — the most obliging set 
of mortals under the sun — he sat down to a pipe, and 
told us all he knew about hydropathy and its results. 
"You can go if you like," said he, "but I advise you 
no. You will stay there long time and think you get 



VENICE TO GKAEFENBERG. 27 

better, but you will be as the first day, but worse ; 
and all the time you think you get well the next day. 
I stay there eighteen months, and then I ask Priess- 
nitz why I am not better, and he say that I stay not 
long enough ; but I say that I stay too long, and I 
come away. There are some peoples who think they 
are cured, and go away and get back all their mala- 
dies. Nevertheless you can go and try, but I think 
you will find it as I say." 

Thus he went on for half an hour or more, murder- 
ing our language and our hopes in the same breath. 
He was so evidently sincere and well-informed that he 
nearly converted us to despair, and made the faces of 
JSTeuville and myself in particular look as long as rope- 
walks. We thanked him heartily for his kindness, 
although it nearly killed us ; and he went away, char- 
itably wishing us a better streak of luck than he had 
found himself. After his departure we talked up our 
courage again to a moderate height, and finally bade 
the landlord arrange for transporting us to Graefenberg 
the next morning. 

A green, rolling, woodland country, the eminences 
of which steadily heightened as we advanced, was the 
scene of our day's journey. It drew toward evening 
when we found ourselves rolling through the long 
winding valley in which stands the little borough of 
Freiwaldau, and above which towers the hill of Graefen- 
berg. A vagrant rivulet touched at intervals upon the 
road side, chilling us already with prospective baths in 
its swift and frigidly crystalline waters. Here and 
there stood linen factories, around which bleached long- 
strips of cloth, stretched out like immeasurable recum- 



28 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

bent ghosts on the emerald meadows. What a provi- 
dence, I thought, that the great water-doctor should 
have been born in a country where he could so easily 
supply himself with douches and bandages ! As we 
neared Freiwaldau, the road was lined by cunning lit- 
tle cottages, built roughly of hewn logs, but blooming 
through every window with pots of flowers. It aston- 
ished me to see this poor and uneducated peasantry 
thus adorn its dwellings with those simple beauties 
of nature, which our better-fed and better-schooled 
laboring classes of New England usually neglect, if 
they do not coarsely despise. 

Battling into an open square, with a town-house in 
the centre, encircled by the more aristocratic buildings 
of Freiwaldau, we pulled up at the Golden Star, ob- 
tained rooms, sent for the landlord, and instituted new 
inquiries concerning the success of Priessnitz in killing 
or curing his patients. But here Priessnitz was taken 
for granted — Priessnitz was an axiom, an admitted fact. 
The only point on which our host differed from the pos- 
sible opinion of the great man was in a certain theory 
that his hotel was a much better place of residence 
than the Establishment. The lodging was wretched 
at Graefenberg, he said ; the food was worse, and the 
building had a bad odor. As to ablutions, he would 
order a tub big enough for us all, have a bath-man 
come to the hotel to superintend our moistenings, and 
provide us with as much water as four reasonable mer- 
men even could desire. 

The Golden Star was a pleasant planet enough, and 
some of us were disposed to accept its head-angel's in- 
vitation ; but Irwine, whom the air of the locality had 



VENICE TO GEAEFENBEEG. 29 

already fanaticized, declared for Graefenberg, no matter 
how disagreeably musty; so that we finally resolved to 
visit the Establishment and smell it for ourselves, be- 
fore we rejected the privilege of living under the imme- 
diate wing and cluck of Priessnitz. 



30 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INSTALLATION AT GRAEFENBERG. 

The whole landscape was buttered with sunshine 
when we sallied out to climb the long hill, half way up 
which shone the whitewashed walls of the great Sile- 
sian Water-cure. It was, nevertheless, the weather of 
a belated spring ; so cool that we covered ourselves 
against its breath with our winter overcoats. I will 
also remark (begging the public's pardon for mention- 
ing such a thing) that we were, one and all, stoutly 
underclothed with flannel ; and I wish particular no- 
tice to be taken of this fact, as it is of considerable in- 
terest when taken in connection with the butterfly cos- 
tume in which we fluttered about a few days afterward. 

Through streets of solid stone-and-plaster houses 
we passed into a narrow sweep of meadows, and cross- 
ed a lively brook of clear water, variously useful in 
washing invalids and dirty clothes. In the shop win- 
dows were displayed huge brogans, stout canes shod 
with iron, drinking-horns, and pretty cups of Bohe- 
mian glass, all significant of the teetotal peripatetic 
society into whose haunts we were about to venture. 
Halfway up the hill we came to a little fountain, where 
a solitary individual was swallowing water with an air 
as if he thought very small beer of the liquid, but sup- 
posed it was good for him. Some hundred yards far- 
ther on was another costive fountain, dripping from 



INSTALLATION AT GRAEFENBERG. 31 

the base of an obelisk of gray stone, on which shone 
the inscription, " Au Genie de l'eau froide." 

From here onward we met numbers of people of a 
cheerfully crazed appearance, wandering confusedly 
hither and thither, like ants when you scatter their 
nest, all of them shabbily attired — some in linen, as 
if in derision of our flannels ; some bareheaded, with 
clipped hair, others with towels about their temples — 
their pockets bulky with glass cups, or their shoulders 
harnessed with drinking-horns. Most of them carried 
thick canes, and raced up the eminences with the hearty 
good-will of Christian climbing the hill Difficulty. La- 
dies, too, were visible, shoeless and stockingless, wad- 
ing through the dewy grass, their feet burning with 
what Doctor Johnson would have called auroral frigid- 
ity and herbiferous friction. They all kept in constant 
motion, and seemed never to speak to each other, re- 
minding me of those bewildered knights in Ariosto's 
enchanted palace, who wandered perpetually up and 
down, hearing the voices of dear friends, but seeing no 
one. The centre of movement for this distracted crowd 
was an irregular square, stony and verdureless, on one 
side of which rose two enormous ghastly buildings, 
with multitudinous windows, constituting the estab- 
lishment proper ; while opposite these, at various dis- 
tances, glared low, whitewashed cottages, also used for 
the stowage and cleansing of a vast invalidism. From 
a concave in the masonry of the outer stairway to the 
principal edifice gushed a hearty little jet of water, 
abundantly supplying the horns and cups which were 
continually presented to its humid mouth. 

Priessnitz was absent for the nonce at Freiwaldau ; 



32 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

but a bathman led us to the superintendent of the Es- 
tablishment. Entering a side door, we mounted to the 
dining-hall, with our handkerchiefs to our offended nos- 
trils ; for the landlord of the Golden Star had not mis- 
represented the perfumes which haunted the building. 
Our first supposition was that these smells arose from 
decayed patients, who had got water-logged and mouldy 
from having been kept too long under treatment ; but 
our guide through this rancid region favored us with a 
more humane, and, as I afterward discovered, a more 
probable explanation. In Silesia, as in Syria, the na- 
tives still preserve a venerable custom, derived, I pre- 
sume, from Noah's ark, of uniting stable and dwelling- 
house under one roof. The Arabs, indeed, keep hogs 
out of their cellars, and are not apt to overcrowd them 
with cows and calves ; but the Silesians despise or ig- 
nore these fastidious precautions, and consequently our 
noses were in great indignation. 

Bare, creaking stairways and floors brought us to a 
prodigious desert of an eating-room, varied by an oasis 
of table (land), and scattered with caravans of unpaint- 
ed chairs in lieu of camels. The superintendent, a 
short, flabby man, with a baldish crown, an apple-dump- 
ling face, and white eyes, came to receive us. I have 
forgotten the exact price which he demanded for board 
and lodging, but it was something extremely insignif- 
icant ; not more, certainly, than three dollars a week. 
It was so much like gratuitous hospitality that we sent 
a porter to the Golden Star for our trunks, and follow- 
ed the superintendent to one of the cottages. We 
found it a very rustic one, built of raw clapboards, 
and approached through a puddle, the overrunnings of 



INSTALLATION AT GRAEFENBERG. 33 

a neighboring water-trough. It had begun life, in- 
deed, as a stable ; but we objected very little to that, 
as the scent of quadruped life had been totally exor- 
cised from its breezy chambers. The floors and par- 
titions were of the consistency of pasteboard, and we 
saw at once that, if we did not wish to disturb our 
neighbors, we must live in a whisper. Every thing 
was of unsophisticated pine : the walls, the narrow bed- 
steads, the chairs, and the aguish wash-stands. 

There were only three chambers for four of us, and 
but one of them was double-bedded and double-chaired. 
We tossed up kreutzers for the single rooms. Irwine 
got one of them, and Burroughs the other. While the 
trunks were coming we commenced a dance in celebra- 
tion of our advent, thinking that, perhaps, we should 
never feel like it again. Presently we heard a yell of 
fury from some profundity below, accompanied by a 
double knock against the floor under our feet from 
what seemed to be a pair of boots. We paused in 
our Shaker exercises, questioning what abodes of tor- 
ture might exist beneath us, and what lost mortal or 
demon might inhabit them. We afterward found that 
a neuralgic Russian lived on the first floor, and that, 
feeling annoyed by our clamor, he had sought to mend 
matters by howling and throwing his shoe-leather 
about. 

Presently we all gathered in the passage to catechise 
a young Englishman who was also (in)stalled in our 
ex-stable. Having been three months under treatment, 
he could give us some idea of what we were to do and 
to suffer ; but, in the very middle of his talk, he was 
imperiously summoned away by a moist, cool execu- 
B 2 



34 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

tioner, armed with a wet sheet. In a moment more 
we heard, with mingled mirth and horror, the rasping 
splash of the dripping linen as it fell upon our friend's 
devoted body ; and, a quarter of an hour afterward, 
we saw him huny out, with wet locks, and make off, 
at a shivering canter, for the mountain paths. 

By half past twelve we were bearing our empty, 
expectant stomachs up and down the great eating-hall. 
Patients followed patients through the creaking doors 
until nearly two hundred sick, blind, and deformed 
people were hungrily patrolling around the long tables. 
Eight or ten neat, curiously white-faced damsels hur- 
ried in and out, loaded with piles of plates, or with 
monstrous loaves of what seemed to be mahogany 
bread. Presently they all entered in a column, bear- 
ing spacious, smoking platters of meat and vegetables, 
prepared, as I afterward found, by cooks of Satan's 
providing. "No other signal was necessary to the fam- 
ished invalids, who immediately made for the tables at 
a pace which reminded one of the fast-trotting boarders 
of a Western hotel. However sick they may have besn 
in other respects, they were certainly well enough to 
eat ; and I think I never saw, before nor since, such an 
average large appetite among such a number of people. 
A disgracefully dirty man, with an ugly, swelled face, 
who sat on our left, filled his plate three or four inches 
deep with every kind of provender, ate it up, and then 
did it again, and a third time, as if it were no feat at 
all. We afterward learned that Priessnitz counseled 
his patients to eat all they wished — the more the better; 
for the old peasant was as perversely ignorant of a stom- 
ach as if he carried a crop and digested with pebbles, 



INSTALLATION AT GKAEFENBERa. 35 

like a chicken ; maintaining, among other heresies, that 
a water-patient's gastric powers should be strengthened 
by hard digestion, as much as his legs by hard walk- 
ing. Partly in consequence of this monstrous theory, 
and partly because of the native savageness of Silesian 
cookery, the food was of the worst description, consist- 
ing of such horrors as veal ten days old, sauer-kraut, 
and the most unsusceptible dough-balls. Such a diet 
would produce a galloping dyspepsia in any one who 
was not invigorated by frequent baths and wet rub- 
bings ; but, as things were, I imagine that no great 
harm was done, and that, in a general way, two hund- 
red ostriches could not have digested better. A man 
who takes four cold duckings per diem, walks five or 
six miles after each of them, and wears a wet bandage 
over his abdomen, may confide, even to recklessness, 
in his gastric juices. 

When we came to discuss the dough-balls above- 
mentioned, a German astonished us by saying that 
they were the favorite dish of the Emperor Ferdinand 
of Austria. "Yes," said he, "with those they coax 
him to sign state papers. He is rather childish now, 
and thinks it a great bore to be always putting his 
signature to proclamations and treaties. According- 
ly, Schwartzenberg tells him that, if he will write his 
name so many times, he shall have dough-balls for 
dinner." 

Our meal closed with spacious fruit pies, not much 
less than two feet in diameter. All these indigestibles 
gave our stomachs exercise until six o'clock, when the 
table w T as set again with the fragments of the mahogany 
loaves, and pitchers of sweet and sour milk. At ten 



36 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

we went to bed, and discovered that we were expected 
to keep warm with one blanket apiece, although the 
weather was chilly enough to palliate the use of four. 
For fear of a wet sheet, however, or some other such 
cold comfort, we took care to call for no additional 
covering, and supplied the hiatus for the night with 
our plaids and overcoats. 



FIRST DIPS IN GRAEFENBERG. 37 



CHAPTER V. 

FIRST DIPS IN GRAEFENBERG 

Early in the morning Priessnitz came into our 
room, followed by Franz, the bathman, and by Irwine, 
who lent himself as interpreter. I saw before me a 
medium-sized person, with weather-beaten features ; a 
complexion which would have been fair but for deep 
sunburn ; eyes of blue, inclining to gray ; thin, light- 
brown hair, touched in with silver, and an expression 
reserved, composed, grave, and earnest. He sometimes 
smiled very pleasantly, but he spoke little, and wore, 
in general, an air of quiet, simple dignity. Altogether, 
I felt as if I were in the presence of a kindly-tempered 
man of superior mind, accustomed to command, and 
habitually confident in his own powers. I afterward 
observed that he kept the same impassive self-posses- 
sion in the presence of every one, were it even the 
highest noble of the Austrian empire. 

He listened to a brief history of my malady, seem- 
ing very indifferent to its past symptoms, but examin- 
ing attentively the color of my skin and the develop- 
ment of my muscles. He then ordered the wet sheet 
to be spread, and signed me to stretch myself in it. 
As soon as I had measured my length on the dripping 
linen, Franz folded me up rapidly, and then packed 
me thickly in blankets and coverlets, as if I were a 
batch of dough set away to rise. Neuville followed 



38 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

my damp example, and our teeth were soon chattering 
in chilly sympathy. Having noted the intensity of our 
ague, as if it were a means of judging what degree of 
vigor in the treatment we could -bear, Priessnitz march- 
ed off to survey the agonies of Irwine and Burroughs. 
Neuville and I remained as fixed, and nearly as moist, 
as King Log in the pond, but in a state of anguish far 
beyond the capacities of that solid potentate. We 
were so cold that we could not speak plainly, and 
shivered until our bedsteads caught the infection. 
Then a change came — a graduated, almost uncon- 
scious change to warmth — and, at the end of ten min- 
utes, it was hard to say whether we were uncomforta- 
ble or not. A few minutes more brought a sensation 
of absolute physical pleasure, and I began to think 
that, after all, water was my element, and that it was 
quite a mistake that I was not furnished with tasty 
red fins like a perch, or a convenient long tail, for 
sculling, like a polliwog. 

Just at this pleasant stage of the experiment, when 
I would have been glad to continue it longer, Priess- 
nitz came back, and declared us ready for the plunge- 
bath. Franz turned up the blanket so as to leave my 
feet and ankles free, shod me with a pair of straw 
slippers, set me unsteadily upright, like a staggering 
ninepin, took firm hold of my envelopments behind, 
and started me on my pilgrimage. I set off at the 
rate of a furlong an hour, which was the top of my 
possible speed under the circumstances. Forming a 
little procession, with Priessnitz ahead as the officia- 
ting priest, then myself as the walking corpse, and 
then Franz as sexton, we moved solemnly on until 



FIRST DIPS IN GEAEFENBEEG. 39 

we reached a stairway leading into a most gloomy and 
low-spirited cellar. Dank, rude, dirty flagstones were 
visible at the bottom, while from an unseen corner 
bubbled the threatening voice of a runlet of water. 
The stair was so steep and the steps so narrow that 
it seemed impossible to descend without pitching for- 
ward ; but, confiding myself desperately to the attrac- 
tion of gravitation, I cautiously raised my left foot, 
made a pivot of the right one, wheeled half a diameter, 
settled carefully down six inches, wheeled back again 
to a front face, brought my dextral foot down, and 
found myself on the first step. Ten repetitions of this 
delicate and complicated manoeuvre carried me to the 
flooring of the cellar. 

Franz now engineered me into a side room, and halt- 
ed me alongside of an oblong cistern, brimming with 
black water, supplied by a brooklet, which fell into it 
with a perpetual chilly gurgle. In a moment his prac- 
ticed fingers had peeled me like an orange, only far 
quicker than any orange was ever yet stripped of its 
envelope. As I shuffled off the last tag of that humid 
coil, the steam curled up from my body as from an ac- 
ceptable sacrifice, or an ear of hot boiled corn. Priess- 
nitz pointed to the cistern, like an angel of destiny 
signing to my tomb, and I bolted into it in a hurry, 
as wise people always bolt out of the frying-pan into 
the fire, when there is no help for it. In a minute my 
whole surface was so perfectly iced that it felt hard, 
smooth, and glossy, like a skin of marble. I got out 
on the first symptom of permission, when Franz set 
about rubbing me down with a new linen sheet, still 
possessed of all its native asperity. If I had been a 



40 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

mammoth or an ichthyosaurus, with a cuticle a foot 
thick, he could not have put more emphasis into his 
efforts to "bring my blood back to a vigorous circula- 
tion. Priessnitz joined in as if he enjoyed the exer- 
cise, and honored me with a searching attrition from 
his knowing fingers. Then, after examining me, to 
see if I grew healthfully rosy under the excitement, he 
signed me to throw a dry sheet over my shoulders, 
and give myself an air-bath before a window into which 
a fresh morning breeze was pouring. Holding tight 
with both hands to the corners of the sheet, I flapped 
my linen wings as if I were some gigantic bat or but- 
terfly about to take flight through the orifice, and soar 
away over the meadows. "Goot!" said Priessnitz, 
nodding his solemn head in token of ample satisfac- 
tion ; and, folding my drapery around me, I marched 
up stairs, like a statue looking for a pedestal, or a be- 
lated ghost returning to its church-yard. I met Neu- 
ville descending with a stiffness of dignity which made 
me think of Bunker Hill Monument walking down to 
get a bath in the harbor ; so woefully solemn, so du- 
bious about his footing, so bolt upright and yet so tot- 
tering, that he would have shaken the gravity of a pyr- 
amid, or moved a weeping crocodile to laughter. Once 
more in the double-bedded chamber, I gave myself a 
few hurried rubs of supererogation, and was about 
dressing, when Neuville and Franz reappeared from 
the lower regions. With shivering fingers I seized 
my thick under-wrapper, and proceeded to don it, with 
a glorious sense of anticipatory comfort. But that 
atrocious Franz saw it, snatched it, tucked it under his 
arm, made a grab next at my drawers and stockings, 



FIEST DIPS IN GEAEFENBERG. 41 

and then signified, "by menacing signs, that I was to 
leave my cloak on its nail. No luckless urchin in 
Dotheboys Hall was ever stripped half so pitilessly. 
As for Neuville, who had been toasting himself over 
American fires through the mediocre chill of a Floren- 
tine winter, and was as sensitive to wind as a butter- 
fly, or a weathercock, or Mr. Jarndyce himself, he was 
despoiled with the same hyperborean unkindness. Out 
we went, nearly as thinly dressed as Adam and Eve, 
but leaving no Paradise behind us ; forth we hurried, 
driven by Franz, that bald-headed cherub, horribly 
armed with a wet sheet ; away into the woods we fled, 
to wander like Cains, and drink three or four tumblers 
of water before we might venture back to breakfast. 

I took my first taste at the House fountain, and 
swallowed a pint with difficulty. I seemed to be 
choke-full of water ; oozing with it at every pore, like 
the earth in spring time ; ready to brim over with it if 
I were turned ever so little off my perpendicular ; fit 
to boil and steam like a tea-kettle, should I incautious- 
ly venture near a fire. It is astonishing how much 
moisture can be absorbed into the system through the 
skin ; how nearly a man can resemble a water-logged 
ship or a dropsical cucumber. 

It was a raw, misty morning, as are nearly all Graef- 
enberg mornings, and the chill humidity crept like a 
breath of ice through our thin remainder of raiment. 
Loose and shaky, from our coat skirts to our teeth, we 
ambled up the hill back of the Establishment, in hopes 
of sheltering ourselves in its woods from an ill-dispo- 
sitioned wind, which blows, year in and year out, over 
those unfortunate landscapes. People passed us or met 



42 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

us every minute ; some just starting out, in a state of 
aguish misery; some returning, rosy and happy in their 
triumphant reaction. The wide path, moistened here 
and there by spacious puddles, entered the forest, and 
wound gradually up the mountain. At every hundred 
yards or so, smaller tracks diverged through the thick- 
ets, or a bubbling fountain reminded the passer that it 
was time to quench his thirst, if he had any. There 
must have been twenty miles of pathway around Graef- 
enberg, all, or nearly all of which had been paid for 
out of a small weekly tax levied on the patients. Sev- 
eral score of fountains, some of them mere wooden 
troughs, others basins or obelisks of stone, had been 
erected by means of this same revenue. Then there 
was a bronzed lion, and two other monuments of con- 
siderable cost, dedicated to the honor of Priessnitz, one 
by the Prussian patients, one by the Hungarians, and 
the third, I believe, by some German noble. 

Now and then we found some favorite fountain sur- 
rounded by invalids, chatting cosily, or pausing to 
drain their cups, and reminding one of a parcel of hens 
clucking and drinking about a water-trough. Neuville 
and I made a very respectable pedestrian effort that 
morning, and returned to the house with anxious voids 
in our stomachs, notwithstanding that we occasionally 
stopped to refill them with water. I should have men- 
tioned that Franz had surcingled us with broad linen 
bandages, of which the two first turns were wet, and the 
two last dry, so as to constitute altogether a kind of 
towel-and-water poultice. This is the finest digestive 
aid or curative that I know of; as much superior to 
stomachic pills and cordials as it is nearer to nature. 



FIRST DIPS IN GRAEFENBERG. 43 

Breakfast was on the table, as it had been for two 
hours, when we entered the eating-hall. Like the last 
night's supper, it consisted of sweet and sour milk, 
with the usual rye and barley bread. By the time we 
had swallowed a disgraceful quantity of this simple 
nutriment, our waist bandages were dry, and required 
a new wetting. Then we repaired to a booth and bought 
stout canes, with iron foot-spikes and curved handles, 
the thickest and fiercest that could be had. Then we 
debated whether we should get drinking-horns to wear 
over our shoulders, or drinking-cups to carry in our 
pockets. At last we decided in favor of the cups, and 
resolved to visit Freiwaldau after dinner, and choose 
some handsome ones of Bohemian glass. Then eleven 
o'clock arrived, and Franz had us away to sit face to 
face, for fifteen minutes, in tubs of cold water, at the 
end of which he polished us off with wet sheets in lieu 
of sand-paper. Then we got ashamed of the effemi- 
nacy of hats, and walked out conspicuously under bare 
polls and green umbrellas. At one o'clock came din- 
ner, which gave us hard work in the digestive and per- 
ipatetic line for some hours afterward. At five, Franz 
wanted to put us in the w T et sheet again, and would 
not take " no" for an answer. Then we had to walk 
half an hour or more to get warm ; and, by the time we 
returned, it was necessary to eat more sour milk and 
mahogany. Then we remoistened bandages, prepara- 
tory to trotting for an hour or two up and down the 
great, ill-lighted hall, in company with scores of other 
uncomfortable people. The room was naturally chilly, 
built so expressly and by malice aforethought, as I be- 
lieve ; in addition to which, that rascally superintend- 



44 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ent delighted in throwing open an elevated range of win- 
dows, thereby giving copious ingress to a damp wind 
that wandered among our shivering forms like the ghost 
of a wet sheet. Nine o'clock sent Franz after us, who 
insisted on wetting our bandages and putting us imme- 
diately to bed, in as comfortless a state as half-drown- 
ed puppies. Kepeatedly in the night we woke, aching 
with cold, for our rations of bed-clothing were still 
restricted to a single blanket. At five in the morning 
Franz was upon us, like the Philistines upon Samson, 
or like Samson upon the Philistines (for it seems to 
have been nip and tuck between those old fellows), 
dragging us down again into those awful nether re- 
gions of wet pavements, brooks, and cisterns. 

It was astonishing how rapidly we became fanati- 
cized under the influence of the cure and the example 
of our fellow-invalids. Before a week was over I had 
discarded all my woolen garments of every cut, and 
wore linen from head to foot in a temperature like that 
of a New England March or a Charleston December. 
It blew every minute, and rained nearly as often ; yet 
we caught no colds, and were savagely indifferent to 
our discomforts. All this, too, was in despite of sar- 
castic declarations, made on our arrival, that we would 
dress and behave like civilized people, and not like the 
slouching, bare-headed, bare-footed fanatics around us. 

It was also remarkable how this general carelessness 
in exteriors depreciated the average beauty of the pa- 
tients. Among the five hundred persons who were 
under cure in Graefenberg and Freiwaldau, there must 
have been a number with some natural claims to come- 
liness ; but, by dint of shabby clothes, cropped hair, 



FIRST DIPS IN GRAEFENBERG. 45 

and neglected beards, this favored few had melted away 
into the great aggregate of ugliness, or retained, like 
Lucifer, only a doubtful halo of former beauty. One 
of our party, a man of sensitive nerves, complained 
that the daily spectacle of such a deteriorated human- 
ity made him unwell, and that he never should con- 
valesce until he could see some handsome people. 



46 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CERTAIN GRAEFENBERGERS. 

Neuville and I had a pearl of a bathman. He 
was a strong, slow, blue-eyed, light-colored Silesian 
peasant, who had once possessed a scalp full of sandy 
hair, but had lost at least half of it in his journey to 
middle life. His whole appearance, and especially his 
smooth, shining pate, reeked with an indescribably cool, 
dewy expression, which made one think of cucumbers, 
wet pebbles, drenched roses, or heads of lettuce after 
a shower. Neuville insisted that he gained this fresh 
appearance by living on such things as celery and water- 
cresses, and by sleeping in one of the cisterns, or per- 
haps down a well like a bullfrog. It may be, indeed, 
that the instinct of association deceived us, and that 
we imputed this aqueous nature to the man solely be- 
cause he had so much to do with our baths ; but, how- 
ever that was, we certainly never looked at him with- 
out being impressed with the idea that he would slice 
up cold and juicy, like a melon or a tomato. 

Franz exhibited a forty-hostler power in rubbing us 
down, and had, perhaps, curried the hides of our quad- 
ruped predecessors in the building. In fact, when I 
think of his frictions, and consider how wet I was at 
the time, I almost wonder that I was not rubbed out 
of existence, like a pencil-mark. Occasionally it was 
impossible not to shout or stamp under the excitation, 



CERTAIN GRAEFENBERGERS. 47 

at which times the old Russian below would bombard 
our floor with his boots, in token of disapprobation. 

Among so many homely people as we had about us, 
there were necessarily some whose ugliness ran into 
eccentricity, if not absurdity. Neuville, who had an 
extraordinary faculty at discovering resemblances be- 
tween men and beasts, or birds, soon fixed on one old 
gentleman as the Owl; and I was obliged to confess 
that, bating the claws, the said human certainly did 
bear a striking likeness to the solemn anchorite of 
ornithology. He was a man of about sixty, with light 
gray hair, light gray beard, and a light gray suit of 
clothes, so that, from a distance, you might suppose 
him to be dressed in light gray feathers. He was tol- 
erably bare of chin, and his mouth had retired under 
a bower of light gray mustaches. His long, curved 
nose looked wonderfully like a beak, and his eyes 
were always wide open with an expression of unquali- 
fied astonishment. However early we rose, however 
fast and far we went, we invariably met him already 
returning, as if he had started out for his morning 
walk some time the day previous. Neuville affirmed 
that he staid in the woods all night, and amused him- 
self with hooting and chasing field-mice until daybreak, 
when he would leave off at the approach of the earliest 
patients, and hurry down to the Establishment to take 
a bath. 

Another interesting personage was a middle-aged, 
muscular Hungarian, with startling black eyes and 
wavy black beard, who had the fame of being crazy, 
or at least unreasonably original. He carried an 
enormous yellow cane, one end of which was fash- 



48 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ioned into a passable flute. He always walked alone, 
like a man who had dealings with fairies and wood- 
nymphs ; and, when he thought no human being was 
within hearing, he would put his cane to his lips, and 
treat his elfin friends to a melody. If a wandering 
fellow-patient came upon him in one of these dulcet 
moments, he dropped the end of his cane, whisked it 
about unconcernedly, and looked all around, or up into 
the clouds, as if he wondered who the deuce made those 
noises. I suspected him of being Orpheus, who, it will 
be remembered, was in the cold water line, and had a 
fancy for playing airs to rocks, fishes, and other dumb 
creatures. 

They told us at Graefenberg of a Mexican who came 
there a year or two before us for the sake of trying the 
cure on his dyspepsia. He went through his first 
packing with great indignation, and was then taken 
down stairs into that horrible abyss of plunge-baths. 
Priessnitz pointed to the cistern and bade him get into 
it. "Never!" he thundered; and, marching up stairs, 
he dressed himself, and went straight back to Mexico. 
Another man in the same situation is said to have fallen 
on his knees before Priessnitz, exclaiming, " Oh sir, 
remember that I have a wife and children!" 

Directly opposite us at table sat an excellent old 
gentleman, a wealthy merchant from Hamburg. Nat- 
urally thin and grizzly, in addition dilapidated like our 
whole company, he had a ludicrously astonished way 
of looking over his spectacles whenever any one ad- 
dressed him, if it were only to say "Good-morning." 
He seemed to be lost in some chaos far away from 
outer life, wandering, perhaps, through the interior 



CERTAIN GEAEFENBEEGEES. 49 

gloom of his own invalidism. At the sound of a 
iroice he raised his head slowly ; the round eyes and 
:ound spectacles settled upon the speaker, one above 
mother, like the ports of a two-decker about to open 
ire ; and then, collecting his vagrant faculties, he would 
smile and utter a few words of overflowing grave good- 
lature. He spoke English pretty well, and, like all 
Grermans, was willing to put his linguistic knowledge 
xi practice on every possible occasion. He took an 
especial fancy to Burroughs, inviting him, if he went 
to Hamburg, to visit his family. Indeed, this Georgian 
comrade of mine, young, gay, full of mirth and conver- 
sation, insinuating in manners, had rapidly become a 
pet among our congress of invalids, and was on terms 
:>f intimate companionship with men even between 
whom and himself there was no bond of common lan- 
guage. I doubt not but many of them still remember 
him with occasional kindly laughter. For my part, I 
3an not speak of him with sufficient gentleness ; for he 
is already numbered in the sacred company of the dead, 
a victim to the yellow fever of Savannah. 

Next to our Hamburg friend sat a tolerably pretty 
and intolerably haughty Prussian lady, the wife of some 
government official, and therefore, according to German 
etiquette, always addressed by the title of her august 
husband. She sometimes made use of our grave neigh- 
bor as an interpreter between herself and our Georgian ; 
and once she signified, in a jesting way, that when she 
came to America she should pay him a visit. 

" Tell her," replied Burroughs, with Oriental mag- 
nificence, " that if she will come and see me I will give 
her five hundred negroes to wait on her." 

C 



50 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

The old Hamburgher, incapable of suspecting a joke, 
opened his eyes to an unaccustomed extent at such an 
extravagance of hospitality. " I think," said he, after 
a moment's reflection, "that five would be better than 
five hundred." 

He translated the splendid proffer, which was received 
with a hearty laugh, and went the rounds of the lady's 
acquaintance with great success. From that time for- 
ward, Burroughs's consequence, and, indeed, that of our 
whole party, was considerably increased in the eyes of 
the Graefenbergers. A man who could be courteous 
to the amount of five hundred negro waiters was worth 
smiling upon. 

Several members of our invalid regiment were veter- 
ans in point of service. A tall, gray-headed Swedish 
count, who occupied a little cottage by himself, and 
cultivated its diminutive garden with his own hands, 
had been under cure eleven years. A rosy German 
baron, of about sixty-five, was three years his senior 
in hydropathic experiences. "I am very well," he 
used to say in explanation, "very well as long as I 
stay here ; but as soon as I go away I get sick again. 
The regular doctors can do nothing for me. I have 
tried them all, and taken every one of their drugs, 
with no result except spoiling my stomach. Accord- 
ingly, every time that I have left Graefenberg I have 
been obliged to return to it. At last I have resolved 
to settle here for life. Why not ? I have plenty of 
respectable society. I live at Freiwaldau, where I can 
have good food and lodging. I am incurable ; our honest 
Priessnitz tells me so himself; but as long as I remain 
here T do not suffer. Why not remain ? Of course." 



CERTAIN GRAEFENBERGERS. 51 

Still another noticeable hydropath was a bald, fat- 
headed, capacious Parisian, of about forty, round as a 
puncheon, and very similar to one in other respects. In 
plain words, he was an occasional drunkard, who had 
been coaxed to Graefenberg by his friends in a hope 
that the cure might rid him of his unfortunate appetite. 
Priessnitz had done his utmost in the way of cold wa- 
ter and warm expostulations ; had even ordered the 
hotel-keepers of Freiwaldau, under penalty of his very 
powerful displeasure, not to furnish Monsieur Cognac 
with any spirituous drinks ; but all to no purpose. 
By all sorts of invisible ways and underground rail- 
roads, the forbidden thing would find its passage to 
the unfortunate man's stomach and brain. As he held 
a respectable position in society and visited nice peo- 
ple, he sometimes produced considerable scandal by 
the contrast between his conduct and his company. 
During one of his staggery moments he happened in 
on a nervous American lady, and quite alarmed her by 
what she considered his eccentric behavior. The next 
day he came again, full of dim, regretful recollections, 
and voluble with apologetical explanations. He had 
had a crisis, he said — some kind of nervous crisis — in 
fact, he had such turns frequently ; they were the 
symptoms of his peculiar malady. He hoped he had 
said nothing disagreeable to Madame ; sometimes his 
attacks were so violent that he hardly knew what he 
said ; he prayed that she would excuse him, and be- 
lieve that he was her most respectful though unworthy 
servant. 

There was a tall, stout grenadier of a Swedish count, 
in the prime of life, who was also one of our notables. 



52 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

He nursed a curious fancy of stealing away into the 
woods, dressed in nothing at all, not even a collar, 
and strolling about thus attired, with an axe in his 
hand, to the great confusion, doubtless, of all the un- 
dines and tree-nymphs. His idea was to take a copi- 
ous air-bath, warming himself at intervals by a few 
chops at wayside saplings ; and he thought that these 
occasional returns to a primitive state of existence had 
a most invigorating effect on his physical and moral na- 
ture. He used to manage his sylvan escapades from 
the douche-houses, wretched little huts well retired 
within the leafy solitude of the forest. "Oh, not at 
all," said he, in answer to some one who asked him if 
such promenades a la garden of Eden did not some- 
times lead him into embarrassing situations. " I meet 
no one but strawberry-girls, and they only laugh and 
get out of my way." 

The prettiest of all our patients — the only beautiful 
one, I verily believe, among them — was a little baron- 
ess of eighteen or nineteen summers, from Vienna. 
With a clear brunette complexion flushing on the 
cheek into roses, the brightest of black eyes, features 
sufficiently regular, and a plump but graceful form, 
she would have been attractive in any place, or amid 
any constellation' of fair women; but, floating through 
our medley of varied ugliness, she was delightful. I 
never saw her without her mother, who, like all Conti- 
nental mammas, held that maidenhood demands the 
watchfulness of little less than giants and dragons. 
My nearest intimacy with her, unfortunately, or per- 
haps fortunately, was to know several of her acquaint- 
ance. One of them, an American, told me that she 



CEETAIN GKAEFENBERGERS. 53 

was a fresli and simple child of nature ; another, a 
French count, laughed at the idea, and affirmed that 
she was a coquette. I incline to the opinion of the 
Frenchman ; firstly, "because I think he was the best 
judge of European manners ; secondly, because I im- 
agine my countryman to have been a little in love with 
the petite baronne. 

This pretty girl came to Graefenberg, a few months 
before my arrival, so deadly sick with a heart disease 
that no one thought she could live. Priessnitz re- 
fused to undertake her cure, saying that she was too 
far gone for any hope, and would probably die under 
the first baths ; but, at the earnest entreaties of her 
relatives, he revoked his decision and commenced her 
treatment, washing his hands, however, of all respon- 
sibility. At the first envelopment in the wet sheet, 
her heart beat so violently that its pulsations were dis- 
tinctly visible through the usual covering of three 
blankets. She survived this opening struggle, and 
thenceforward convalesced rapidly. When I saw her 
she used to climb the steep hills around Graefenberg 
with such an aspect of health as if she had never been 
ill, nor would be so forever. 



54 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GRAEFENBERGESSES AND GRAEFENBEEGIANISMS. 

I OUGHT to say one word of the native beauties of 
Graefenberg. When I speak of them as beauties, it 
makes me laugh to think how ugly they were ; but I 
ought to be ashamed of myself, for it was no laughing 
matter to the poor creatures themselves. As there 
were a number of wealthy families in the borough of 
Freiwaldau, there were, of course, some young ladies 
there who dressed well, and considered themselves 
aristocratic. But, however genteel, they were not 
handsome, and had, in particular, a dropsical, cadaver- 
ous look, as if overbleached in their papas' linen-facto- 
ries. I never tried to talk to them ; common sense 
forbade it ; I spoke no German. 

The only damsels of the locality with whom it was 
easy to come to an understanding were the peasant 
girls, who collected every morning around the House 
fountain to sell us cakes, strawberries, and cherries. 
Jovial, laughing bodies all of them, several were rath- 
er pretty in a coarse way, by reason of merry blue 
eyes, mouths full of fine teeth, and cheeks full of dim- 
ples. One of them, who did me the favor of officia- 
ting as my washer-woman, was really handsome, as far 
as regular features, a clear rosy skin, a small coral 
mouth, and a nicely-rounded form are sufficient to con- 
stitute handsomeness. The advantages of shoes were 



GRAEFENBERGESSES AND GRAEFENBERGIANISMS. 55 

acknowledged by these nymphs ; but they scorned 
stockings, and wore economical frocks reaching only 
six inches below the knee, in consequence of which 
they made a startling display of solid sun-burnt legs, 
generally well modeled, and not seldom profusely 
scratched by the thickets and brambles through which 
they waded to collect their horticultural merchandise. 
Alas for the romance of these sylvan scenes ! these 
daughters of nature were decidedly more frail than fair, 
the morals of the peasantry for miles around Graefen- 
berg having been lamentably corrupted by its unscru- 
pulous bachelor patients. Much evil, Priessnitz said, 
had been brought into the district by his establish- 
ment, and no good thing besides money. 

As for the young ladies of our invalid set, and old 
ladies too, I had a fair opportunity of seeing them at 
their best, in the balls which took place twice a week 
in the great dining-hall. On Sunday evenings and 
Thursday evenings the chairs and tables were hud- 
dled into one end of the room, so as to give space to 
dancing and flirtation. Directly over the principal 
door a small gallery trembled under a riotous mob of 
fiddles and trumpets, which some laborious Silesian 
peasants vainly tried to reduce to melodious order. 
The society was as mixed a one as could easily be 
collected in the Hartz Mountains of a Walpurgis nighty 
all languages, classes, and manners being there repre- 
sented, from Americans to Kussians, and from dukes 
to dog-doctors. 

As Priessnitz insisted that every one should dance 
who could, it naturally happened that some people 
tried to dance who could not. I remember one un- 



56 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

lucky individual, apparently troubled with the string- 
halt, who twitched his legs after him in a style that 
was too much for the gravity of us youth, and who, 
as he made the circle of the saloon in a waltz or polka, 
was followed by an epidemic smile shooting from face 
to face, as if he were some planet of mirthfulness, dis- 
pensing a splendor of broad grins upon every thing 
which bordered his orbit. Then there was an indis- 
creet little man in black, who invariably coupled him- 
self with the tallest woman present, and manoeuvred 
her about the hall with the helpless jerkings of a jolly- 
boat trying to tow a frigate. Many of the guests, 
however, showed themselves natural and experienced 
dancers, managing their heels with an eloquence of 
motion which put to shame the inarticulate bleating of 
the wretched music. 

The favorite dance was a wild gallop, much like a 
steeple-chase in point of reckless rapidity, whirling 
people around the enchanted circle with the briskness 
and rumpled confusion of hens blown about like a 
whirlwind. A very advantageous step it was for those 
ladies who had pretty ankles ; and for this artistic 
reason it was as popular with the outsiders as with 
the performers. But the finest thing of all was a thun- 
dering Polish mazurka, emphasized with heavy boots, 
in a style which made one feel as if he were envel- 
oped in a charge of cavalry. 

The balls usually commenced at half past seven, 
and continued vehemently until half past nine, when 
the patients began to drop off to their chambers. 
Priessnitz was almost always present, attended by his 
family, a pleasant smile playing on his red-oak face, 



GRAEFENBERGESSES AND GEAEFENBERGIANISMS. 57 

while he talked with the old fellows who had the hon- 
or of his intimacy, or gazed approvingly at the hig- 
gledy-piggledy whirl of feet and faces. Here, as ev- 
ery where, he spoke little, and I presume that he had 
few ideas except such as were good to put in practice ; 
for I understood that he had never learned to read un- 
til he was twenty-five, and that even now his lections 
were limited to an occasional newspaper. Near him 
usually sat Mrs. Priessnitz, a rather hard-featured, 
careful-eyed woman, not as kindly in manner as her 
husband, and, to all appearance, still more taciturn. 
The eldest daughter I never saw, thanks to an attract- 
ive dowry by which she had secured a Hungarian no- 
ble for her husband. The second daughter, a pale and 
rather haughty blonde of eighteen, neither handsome 
nor homely, was one of the best and most frenetic of 
the dancers. When nine o'clock came, the old couple 
quietly walked off, leaving their absence as a hint to 
the revelers that it was time to wet their bandages 
and go to bed. 

Among such a number of young gallants and peo- 
ple made irritable by indigestions, gouts, and neural- 
gias, it was natural that insults should sometimes be 
passed which nothing but blood and gunpowder could 
expiate. A very interesting squabble took place on 
the occasion of an associated ball, given by ten or a 
dozen leading dandies (or lions, as they say in French) 
of our savage society. One of the managers was a 
corpulent Frenchman, named D'Hauteville, a social, 
civil man, like most of his countrymen, as long as he 
was well treated, but sufficiently quick on the trigger 
for all fighting purposes. Among the invited was a 
C2 



58 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

long, awkward, tow-headed Austrian lieutenant, a Sax- 
on by birth, quite a young fellow, but so insufferably 
conceited that you wanted to quarrel with him at first 
sight. To prevent confusion in the supper-room, it 
had been agreed that the managers alone should hand 
refreshments to the ladies. Our Saxon, despising this 
sumptuary law and its enactors, escorted a couple of 
damsels to the tables, and proceeded to furnish them 
liberally with whatever he could lay his sprawling 
hands on. D'Hauteville softly remonstrated in his 
long ears, repeating the above-mentioned agreement, 
and begging him to submit to some little unavoidable 
delay rather than open a scene of confusion. The lieu- 
tenant replied that his ladies had already waited an 
annoying time for hungry people, who doubtless wore 
wet bandages, and that he should now see to it him- 
self that they received the proper convivial attentions. 
D'Hauteville retorted, with the spunk of the true Gal- 
lic cock, that he should prevent him ; and in a moment 
both parties were ready to disembowel each other with 
their dessert-spoons, a species of contest in which the 
Frenchman would have been at a great disadvantage by 
reason of his superior abdominal development. They 
were separated for the moment, however, and the even- 
ing passed off without further disturbance. 

The next day, every body concerned wanted satis- 
faction, and the result was a resolution to settle the 
matter by pistols and surgeons. A rendezvous of 
death was appointed in Prussia, some eight or ten 
miles from Graefenberg, and a couple of sorry hacks 
bore to it the proposed combatants, with their train of 
Job's comforters. On the way, in consequence of the 



GEAEFENBEEGESSES AND GEAEFENBEEGIANISMS. 59 

badness of the roads or the horses, the lieutenant had 
so much time for reflection, and employed it also to so 
amiable a purpose, that he resolved, before he would 
fight, to see all the laws of honor where they came 
from, that is, in Tophet. Arrived at the ground, he 
made the explanations that he would not make ten 
hours before, retracted all his offensive remarks, and, 
in consequence, spoiled the fun of the seconds. They 
were as indignant as disappointed people usually are, 
especially those who are called out of bed for nothing ; 
and they subsequently treated the placable young 
man's feelings with great inhumanity, insisting that he 
should resign his commission. 

Another duel actually came off between an Austrian 
officer, whose name I have forgotten, and an English 
lieutenant called Drummond. The Austrian, having 
taken a great fancy to Drummond, improved every op- 
portunity of seizing him by the button-hole and in- 
flicting upon him certain lengthened conversations. 
His love was but ill requited, for Drummond consid- 
ered him a bore from the first, and liked him all the 
less as they became more intimate. Such a contrari- 
ety of pulling on the cords of friendship could not 
last long without producing a rupture; and Drum- 
mond, who was nervous by right of dyspepsia, soon 
grew excessively irritable under the Austrian's famil- 
iarities, like a snappish dog who gets indignant at 
little Bobby's affectionate but awkward attachment to 
his tail. 

Happening to meet one morning when the wind was 
due east, the Austrian bowed as usual, but his over- 
wearied friend passed on without vouchsafing a look 



60 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

in reply. The forsaken one halted with a martial stare 
of indignant wonder ; but, remembering that English- 
men are eccentric, he resolved to wait for further de- 
velopments before he considered himself insulted. A 
short time afterward they encountered again, and the 
Austrian repeated his salute. Drummond turned his 
back on him, and marched off with a gesture of su- 
preme contempt. The next morning he received a 
call from a friend of his late friend, who, after a cere- 
monious bow, made known that his business was to 
demand explanation of certain irreverent conduct of 
Lieutenant Drummond toward Captain Whatshisname- 
stein of the Austrian army. 

" Certainly," said Drummond. " The truth is, that 
I am tired of your friend's acquaintance, and want to 
relieve myself of it. I did my best, in a civil way, to 
make him understand that he bored me. He would 
not take a hint, and I had to insult him. That is the 
whole affair." 

"Of course, then, you are ready to grant him the 
only satisfaction that remains to a gentleman in his 
cirumstances ?" 

" Of course. All he wants — whenever he pleases." 

" My principal, being the injured party, has a right 
to the choice of arms. Still, he desires to know wheth- 
er there is any particular weapon that you would pre- 
fer." 

" INTo ; any thing — any thing that he likes." 

"Are you acquainted with the use of the broad- 
sword ?" 

"Not at all." 

"lam sorry. It is the weapon of predilection in 



GRAEFENBERGESSES AND GRAEFENBERGIANISMS. 61 

the Austrian service for such occasions, and the one 
which my principal would choose before all others." 

" Oh, don't hesitate on my account. Let it be the 
broadsword, if your friend at all desires it ; and the 
broader the better." 

Accordingly, broadsword it was, the next morning, 
in a high-pitched room in one of the hotels of Frei- 
waldau. 

Drummond had time to take a lesson or two in sa- 
bre exercise from the fencing-master of the village, so 
as not to be delivered up to his adversary's blade un- 
resistingly. Fencing lessons, in such pressing cases, 
always consist of a few simple parries, with two or 
three only of the most prudent offensive strokes. The 
novice is strongly counseled to stand as much as pos- 
sible on guard, and to make very cautious cuts at his 
vis-a-vis, reserving even these until the chance is pal- 
pable. As German duels usually end with the first 
blood drawn, this method of fighting is very favorable 
to green hands ; and the skirmish generally closes with 
some insignificant scratch, which does not always fall 
upon the least practiced of the combatants. 

Drummond followed out this system of tactics with 
great coolness and success. Parrying carefully the 
wrathful storm of blows which fell on his sabre, he at 
last got a chance to let in a hit of his own, grazing his 
opponent's arm, and sending a small streak of crimson 
down the bare white skin. Observing the blood, and 
supposing that satisfaction had been given, he neglect- 
ed to recover guard, and received a light tap on the 
shoulder from the German, who, it seems, was uncon- 
scious of being wounded. Drummond brought up his 



62 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

sabre again, and administered another mild slash ; for 
his opponent had, in turn, dropped guard at sight of 
the bloody shoulder. All this passed like lightning, 
and before the seconds could interfere to prevent the 
double mistake, which certainly appears in a most com- 
ical light if the reader will only consider that a couple 
of heads might have been whipped off by it. It will be 
observed, also, that the confident, experienced swords- 
man had received two wounds, and the cautious novice 
only one. The duel was now over, and honor satis- 
fied ; nothing remained but to settle the disagreement. 
The seconds called on the principals to shake hands 
and forget their differences. 

"I will shake hands," said Drummond, "but not 
forget the difference. It is unreasonable to expect me 
to take all this trouble to get rid of a man's acquaint- 
ance, and then continue as intimate with him as be- 
fore. Here is my hand, but on condition that we keep 
apart hereafter." 

The Germans agreed to this proposition out of re- 
spect to English eccentricity, and Drummond left the 
room, charmed at having got quietly rid of his trouble- 
some admirer. I ought to add that I witnessed nei- 
ther of these affairs, and, therefore, relate their history 
at second-hand, which is as safe a hand as a man can 
have in a duel. 



THE CURES OF GRAEFENBERG. 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CURES OF GRAEFENBERG. 

Whether the Silesians are naturally given to het- 
erodox methods of doctoring, or whether simply the 
success of Priessnitz had generated imitators, I can 
not decide ; but one or other of these causes had fa- 
vored the neighborhood of Graefenberg with a variety 
of odd establishments for the healing of diseases. 
There was a Curd Cure, wherein sick people were fed 
exclusively on curdled milk, and, if I was rightly in- 
formed, put asoak in it. There was a Straw Cure, 
wherein the patients not only drank intemperately of 
straw tea, but were horribly tormented by being put 
naked inside of straw beds, and kept there until they 
were nearly flayed by the points and edges of this me- 
dicinal fodder. And, about two miles from Graefen- 
berg, in the valley of the little stream of Freiwaldau, 
was still another eccentric hospital devoted to a meth- 
od of treatment called the Wine Cure. Here horrible 
sweatings, of eight hours, in numerous dry blankets, 
made the nights miserable ; while a curious system of 
diet, arranged on a sliding scale, carried the patients 
through all the stages of starvation and repletion, com- 
mencing with abundant meals, and descending gradu- 
ally to the circumscribed rations of three small rolls a 
day ; then creeping up the digestive staircase again to 
aldermanic breakfasts and dinners, and so on, up and 
down, until the sufferer was either cured, buried, or 



64 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

driven to the desperation of flight. In compensation 
for this sharp mortification of the flesh, a considerable 
daily portion of wine was allowed, and on Saturdays 
double treats. D'Hauteville told me that, happening 
in there one Saturday afternoon, he found the patients 
and the doctor all fuddled together. One old acquaint- 
ance, too glad to see him to wait till he could reach the 
door, stuck his fist through a pane of glass to shake 
hands, after which he hallooed riotously, declaring that 
he felt better every minute, and denouncing Priessnitz 
as a quack and cold water as a nuisance. 

Singular as it may seem, this system often effected 
cures, and drew over various renegades from Graefen- 
berg. One of these apostates from cold water told me 
that he and his comrades suffered very little from hun- 
ger during the long fasts above mentioned, and seemed 
to lose their appetites in proportion as their food was 
diminished. Still, the wine-doctor's severe sweatings 
and dietings were exceedingly hard upon delicate con- 
stitutions, and, on the whole, his practice, like that of 
a Kentucky rifleman, was apt to be attended by very 
sudden deaths. Personally he was a tall, heavy, hulk- 
ing fellow of about fifty, with the tone and manners of 
an unmistakable peasant. He pretended to be the 
predecessor of Priessnitz in medicine ; he was even 
profane enough to tell us that the great Graefenberger 
was only his imitator. 

As for our party in the stable, we remained faithful 
to cold water, unsecluced by the fascinations of curds, 
straw tea, or even wine cures. We took four baths a 
day, at a minimum, and occasionally more. In oppo- 
sition to a light fever, Neuville once accomplished fif- 



THE CUKES OF GEAEFENBEEG. 65 

teen packings between sunrise and bedtime. However 
violent an illness might be, people at Graefenberg nev- 
er betook themselves to their beds, but rather to sup- 
plementary waterings and walkings. I knew an En- 
glish lady, the wife of a Swiss clergyman, who, to drive 
off an inflammation of the lungs, was dashed with 
handfuls of cold water for a couple of hours together ; 
and, when she was so completely chilled that no sur- 
face heat remained any where, except a little about her 
head, a couple of stout bathwomen took her by the 
arms and walked her to and fro until the circulation 
returned. Two operations of this sort, followed by 
a sound night's sleep, expelled, or, in the words of 
Priessnitz, froze out the inflammation. 

A young Dantzicker, who had been pestered for 
three months by an intermittent fever, was stripped, 
folded in a dripping wet sheet, and seated by an open 
window through which a strong draught was flowing. 
From time to time, as his envelopment gave signs of 
drying, he was doused with a pailful of water. Two 
hours of this treatment scattered the fever for three 
days, and, when it reappeared, a second session of the 
same nature so disgusted it, that, like an exorcised 
devil, it decamped and returned no more. 

Such cases as these, however, were extreme ones, 
and our good doctor was sometimes cautious to an 
appearance of timidity. A stout, florid Italian lady, 
bearing semblance of unvaried health, told me that 
Priessnitz refused to give her any of the usual baths, 
and would submit her to no operation beyond a slight 
rubbing with dampened towels. She begged hard to 
be allowed the wet sheet, which is also a moist rubbing, 



6Q EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

but of a much moister quality. Priessnitz consented 
unwillingly, and told the bathwoman to send for him 
in case of any alarming result. The wet sheet was 
applied, and brought on an immediate fit of violent 
hysterics — an excellent proof, I thought, of the peas- 
ant-doctor's prudence and keen professional insight. 

One case which I witnessed excited a great deal of 
admiration among the patients, as it was one of the 
marvelous cures which sometimes happened at Graef- 
enberg. A pleasant-faced Hungarian girl came to the 
Establishment, with one eye totally blinded, and the 
sight of the other failing. Every day I saw her pass 
and repass our rooms, her head swathed with wet 
bandages, her steps guided by the arm of an elder 
sister. After two or three weeks of the treatment, 
the light went away altogether from her dark orbs, 
and she was completely sightless. People muttered 
loudly at the poor girl's misfortune, and attributed it 
to the rashness or clumsiness of the doctor. Priess- 
nitz said that the visual nerve had been paralyzed by 
an internal ulcer, which would soon break, and give 
way to a rapid recovery. Great was the wonder of 
Graefenberg at the result; for at the end of a week or 
so this hazardous prophecy became fact: a discharge 
of matter took place, and both the girl's eyes resumed 
their vision. 

The effect of the cure on myself was not such in 
manner as I had anticipated, but was, if any thing, 
more than I had presumed to hope. Some years of 
unrewarded obedience to doctors and of fruitless fora- 
gings in apothecaries' shops had taught me to put little 
trust in great medicines of whatsoever description. 



THE CUEES OF GEAEFENBEEG. 67 

Still, there was a fascination in the labors of hydrop- 
athy, an epidemic in the immense faith of every one 
around me, which made me look forward with vague 
expectation to quick and satisfactory results. I waited 
for a crisis of some strange sort — a fever, an eruption, 
or as many boils as Job, and then a sudden falling of 
the burden from my weary shoulders. What I found 
was a gradual increase of strength, a hitherto unknown 
power of enduring fatigue, a new buoyancy of hope 
and cheerfulness. Day by day the spirit of my dream 
changed from sickness to health, until I discovered to 
my surprise that I was recovering without a miracle. 
I learned to walk ten miles over the hills in the early 
morning without other stomachic support than water, 
and felt after it, when I sat down to breakfast, as if I 
could eat not only the sour milk before me, but the cow 
that gave it. There was no fatigue from which a bath 
would not raise me, and send me out again to track 
the mountain paths until my long-tasked muscles 
demanded another invigoration from the benevolent 
water-naiad. To the habitual invalid, to him who 
feels it for the first time in years, or perhaps in life, 
there is no sensation more glorious, more superhuman, 
than the consciousness of abounding and sufficient 
strength. All labors seem so easy, all trials so insig- 
nificant, all nature so friendly and sympathizing. 

Yet, notwithstanding all the benefits received at 
Graefenberg, I left it before my cure was half com- 
pleted. The climate, as I have said, was detestable. 
It rained nearly half the time, even when it was fair 
weather. The winds were as cold as if they slept in 
wet sheets, and blew all the while, without pause or 



68 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

punctuation. The food was an insult to the palate 
and an injury to the stomach. I knew not the differ- 
ence in hydropathic physicians, and hoped to find, in 
some more supportable locality, another as skillful as 
Priessnitz. D'Hauteville told me of places in his 
country where I could continue my cure, and, at the 
same time, practice good French instead of bad Ger- 
man. Thus, after a residence of two months at Graefen- 
berg, I wandered away in the company of Burroughs, 
and, now seeking a ruined castle, now a water-cure, 
traversed middle Germany with all the haunted Rhine- 
land. 



DIVONNE, OK MERMANIIOOD IN FRANCE. 69 



CHAPTER IX. 

DIVONNE, OR MERMANHOOD IN FRANCE. 

Our obliging secretary of legation at Paris, Mr. Hen- 
ry Sandford, interested himself in the object of my 
search, and soon discovered the locality and circum- 
stances that I wanted. In the southeastern part of 
France, said he, fifteen minutes' walk from the Swiss 
frontier, and one hour's walk from Lake Leman, you 
will find the new and highly-recommended hydropath- 
ic establishment of Divonne. 

I left Paris in the Genevan diligence, and amused 
myself for about forty hours in looking out of the 
coupe windows. I observed that the hills were too 
rounded and bare of trees, the meadow lands too few, 
and the vineyards too much like bean-fields, to permit 
any great number of charming landscapes. I was vex- 
ed to see that the picturesque old chateaux with point- 
ed towers had been mostly pulled down and replaced 
by whitewashed boxes of the renaissance order, dating 
chiefly, I thought, from the tasteless times of Louis 
XV. I judged from the faces and manners of the 
French peasantry that they were own cousins to the 
Irish peasantry, particularly when I came upon a quar- 
tet of them dancing gayly in wooden shoes, on a mud- 
dy road, of a rainy day. I was reminded of Puss-in- 
boots when I saw the postillions up to their waists in 
ponderous cowhide ; and I turned from their absurd 
bobtailed coats to a recollection of those elders of Is- 



70 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

rael who had their skirts cut off about their middles by 
Hanun, king of the Ammonites. The reader stares, 
perhaps, and wonders whether this is all that I saw in 
passing through France the beautiful. I reply that I 
saw many other things, but that he has already heard 
of them, even to greater satiety than of these. 

At Dijon the coupe received two other travelers, 
brothers, by birth Scotchmen, by residence Londoners. 
At first they took me for an aborigine, and one of them 
made in rheumatic French some advances toward an 
intimacy. Our conversation hobbled in a helpless 
style until each saw plainly that the other was no 
Gaul, and then, with a bound of delighted surprise, 
it sailed airily away on its native wings of English. 

From the top of the brown Jura we descended by a 
sinuous road into an astonishing valley, where Lake 
Leman shone splendidly in a setting of mountains, 
while to the south, under the bridges of Geneva, flow- 
ed away the humid glitter of the Rhone, and behind 
towered, in blinding whiteness, the sublime brother- 
hood of Swiss mountains. Furiously down the zig- 
zag descent rattled the diligence, grating dangerously 
around sharp corners, and exposing, in rapid succes- 
sion, now one side and now the other to the vast un- 
der landscape. As it tacked and veered, our three 
wondering faces clustered alternately on the right-hand 
or left-hand window, peeping out like inquisitive young 
opossums from the omnibus of their mother's corpo- 
rality. 

"You don't mean to say that those are the real 
Alps ?" said the younger Scotchman, pointing with the 
stem of his clay pipe at Mont Blanc and Company. 



DIVONNE, OR MERMANIIOOD IN FRANCE. 71 

" To be sure they are," responded his brother, who 
had seen them before. 

"Dear me! God bless me! how remarkably small 
they are ! Why, I expected to see them stick up right 
over my head. Where's the tobacco, Jim ? I'll take 
another smoke." 

" For shame, you barbarian ! Talk about smoking 
when there is such scenery to be looked at !" 

" Have patience, Jim. I shall grow up to the sen- 
timent by-ancl-by, I suppose, but they look confound- 
ed small at present." And here the disappointed sight- 
seer curled himself back in the middle of the coupe to 
puff at the consolatory Virginia. How many a man 
has experienced this same dwarfing of emotion when 
he has at last come in sight of the Alps, Niagara, Rome, 
Raphael, or any other bourne of gigantic expectation ! 

At the Hotel de la Couronne I summoned the head 
waiter, and inquired what he knew of Doctor Vidart's 
hydropathic conveniences and capacities. " Sir," he 
replied, " I am acquainted well with the place. I have 
not myself visited it, but Madame, the proprietress of 
this hotel, was there cured of a malady. Let me as- 
sure you, sir, that you will there be very content ; you 
will there find a doctor of much capacity and a society 
very agreeable." 

Thus encouraged, I took coach the next day for Di- 
vonne. Over the translucent Rhone, right by the green, 
breezy island of Rousseau, along the ineffable beauty 
of Lake Leman, through a country of neat cottages and 
costly villas, a couple of sorry horses bore me in two 
hours to the gates of Doctor Paul Yidart, where I de- 
scended, and made application for a hospitable admit- 



72 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

tance. Yes, there was a chamber at the service of 
Monsieur; yes, Monsieur the Doctor was with himself; 
yes, the porter should cause the baggages to mount 
immediately ; yes, said the gay Savoyard portress to 
all my questions and all my demands. 

Lodgings secured, face and hands washed, I received 
a visit from the doctor, a handsome, portly man of thir- 
ty-five, with something of the dignity of his retired 
surgeonship from the French army, and all the jovial, 
easy politeness which is the birthright of most French- 
men. My performance of the salutations was tolera- 
ble, but I found it a far harder thing to describe symp- 
toms and understand prescriptions, and I tried to evade 
the difficulty. Alas ! he had no knowledge of En- 
glish; he regretted that he could boast no speaking- 
acquaintance with the Italian ; he knew a little Ara- 
bic, which was entirely at my service if agreeable, but 
his language was French. 

Courage, perseverance, and a pocket dictionary car- 
ried me victoriously through the trial. The doctor 
and I came to an understanding, which, I am happy 
to say, was never followed by a misunderstanding. 
Speaking of pocket dictionaries, by the way, I may as 
well confess that I used my dictwnnaire de jpoche for 
some months before I discovered that Poche was not 
the author of it. 

The doctor gone, I wandered down stairs, and strolled 
about the grounds of the establishment. Young trees 
waved over neat flower-bands and graveled walks, while 
here a swan-fountain poured forth its cool luxury, and 
there a small jet flung up its trembling pillar of spray. 
The buildings were three in number : a long stone 



D1V0NNE, OR MERMANHOOD IN FRANCE. 73 

affair, originally a factory; a modern addition, con- 
taining the saloon, dining-liall, and kitchen; finally, 
in separate dignity, behind a large oak, the small but 
comfortable house of the doctor. A roofed passage, 
which was really a bridge, spanning a swift rivulet of 
the purest, gayest water, united the two edifices of the 
establishment proper. 

The patients had apparently sought shelter indoors 
from the monotonous drizzle of an autumnal rain, and 
no one was about besides myself and a shaggy, under- 
sized dog, who had taken up a position on three legs 
beneath the oak-tree. He seemed to be a humorist, 
for, as I passed him, he put his tongue in his cheek, or, 
rather, out of one corner of his mouth, and eyed me 
with a quizzical expression, which seemed to say, 
" There's another of 'em ; you'll see him in the brook 
to-morrow. I know where they'll put him ; it isn't a 
warm, dry place neither." 

The saloon was a ground-floor room, thirty or thirty- 
five feet long, simply furnished, though gorgeous now 
to my mind's eye with all the gay hours that I after- 
ward spent there. I noticed pillars to sustain the 
ceiling, crimson curtains over the tall windows, a 
piano near the fireplace, and modern French novels 
strewed about the tables. As the hour-hand of a 
mantel-clock verged toward one, hungry patients filed 
in to the number of three or four dozen, and presently 
a short, stupid waiter (who twice afterward basted my 
coat with gravy) invited us, in horrible Alsatian French, 
to enter the dining-hall. Sailing in quietly and decent- 
ly, we halted with our faces to a long table, like a shoal 
of well-behaved fishes with their noses to the bait. 

D 



74 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Being the last comer, I was seated very near the lower 
end, between a short, yellow-headed Swiss, and a tall, 
black-headed Frenchman. The dinner was excellent, 
and I felt that I was in a civilized country, where I 
need have no fears, as at Graefenberg, lest the next 
dish should be boiled gentleman and lady. The knives 
and forks rattled cheerfully, but not boisterously, and 
above all rose a courteous mirthfulness of French talk 
and laughter. 

Before reaching Divonne I had made the resolution 
to speak French there, or perish in the attempt. I 
commenced on my yellow-haired comrade, who seem- 
ed glad of the provocation, and bombarded me for the 
space of an hour with a whole arsenal of unintelligible 
questions and observations. However, I bore up 
gallantly under the assault, guessed out some of his 
meanings, made him comprehend several of mine, and 
felt, on the whole, heroic, confident, victorious. Now 
and then I glanced up the line of guests to get an idea 
of the character and appetites of my present associates. 
At the head appeared the portly figure, regular features, 
and merry eye of the doctor, his lips parting at every 
moment to let in a morsel or let out a sentence, while 
now and then the gleam of his small white teetlTpref- 
aced a shout of laughter, the echo of some good joke 
or comic story. On his left sat his brother, remark- 
able for the same broad frame, blue eye, and Grecian 
nose, but graver, more reposeful, and more taciturn. 
Beside the two were their wives, small, quiet Swiss 
ladies, almost eclipsed, both physically and morally, 
by the robustious presence of their husbands. A 
chair or two below the doctor sat a dark-browed man 



DIVONNE, OR MERMANHOOD IN FRANCE. 75 

of middle age, who was pointed out to me as Frederick 
Monod, one of the most distinguished Protestant min- 
isters in France, an embodiment of no sanctimonious 
misanthropy, but rather of a genial sympathy with 
humanity, in its happiness as well as in its misery. 
He and the doctor seemed to keep up a perpetual 
popping of gay repartees, like two baskets of Cham- 
pagne bombarding each other with alternate mirthful 
corks and hilarious foam-spouts. Below them several 
decorous ladies and bright demoiselles listened earn- 
estly over their plates, echoing back the jokes with 
frequent laughter. One girl of fifteen attracted my 
attention by a remarkably handsome face — one of the 
prettiest, in fact, that I had yet seen in Europe. Very 
beautiful hazel eyes, regular features, and a rich bru- 
nette color, with an expression strangely mingled of 
reserve and cleverness, made a whole that shines dis- 
tinctly yet in my memory. Like all good French 
girls in the presence of their mothers or of strangers, 
she had a timid air, and seldom gave utterance to her 
little fancies. 

Below Ida came a long row of comparatively unin- 
teresting jaws, some feminine, some bearded, but all 
hard at work over their food or their conversation. 
Two or three conscious button-holes blushed witli the 
red ribbon of the Legion of Honor. One gentleman 
thus adorned had the air of an extremely stupid man, 
remarkable for nothing but a squint of horrible per- 
verseness. I cautiously inquired of a young Pied- 
montese, who spoke some English, whether this un- 
promising legionary had been decorated for strabismus, 
and my question was politely taken as a very good hit 



76 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

at the facility with which medals and ribbons had been 
conferred in France. It struck me as possible, also, 
that the gentleman got his squint subsequently to his 
embellishment, in consequence of trying to keep one 
admiring eye always fixed on his honorable button- 
hole. 

The dinner, as I have said, was excellent, simple 
in its selection of dishes, well cooked, and only faulty 
in finishing with a dessert of pastry. The doctor aft- 
erward confided to me that he suffered this dyspeptic 
dish out of respect for his numerous Genevese patients, 
who were nonsensically attached to their preserves and 
pie-crust. Dinner over, the bachelors and the hus- 
bands of bachelor habits (numerous classes both on the 
Continent) dropped away to the billiard-room, to smoke 
or to punch the heads of those much-persecuted ivory 
bullets. The others, deterred from lounging out of 
doors by the interminable rain, scattered about the 
spacious parlor. A tall, fair, silent girl from Geneva, 
a niece of the doctor's wife, sat down to the piano, and 
played, with admirable execution, a series of waltzes 
and opera airs. Some listened to the music, some 
fumbled the illustrated novels and magazines on the 
table, some kept up the murmur of conversation which 
had commenced over the soup. As an hour passed 
on, people dropped away to their rooms, or braved the 
rain in the peripatetic philosophy of thick boots and 
umbrellas. There was no insanity here in the cure, 
no summer cloth for winter weather, no wet toweling 
for hatless heads, no ostentatious display of bare feet 
and ankles. Fanaticized as I was by the savage en- 
thusiasm of Graefenberg, I secretly mourned over this 



DIVONNE, OR MEEMANHOOD IN FRANCE. 77 

effeminacy, fearing lest Divonne should be the Capua 
of my hydropathic hardihood; and I only waited a 
better acquaintance with the doctor, or rather with his 
language, to instill into him more ferocious ideas of the 
treatment, and a more orthodox zeal for making his 
patients wholesomely uncomfortable. 

At four o'clock, the hour of afternoon immersion, I 
looked up my particular bathman, and placed myself 
at his discretion. I was soon hermetically kerneled 
in a dripping sheet and a stout packing of blankets, 
the whole being tucked in with a puffy upper crust of 
feather bed. This last affair was one of those light, 
downy syllabubs used by" the Germans as coverlets, 
but so insupportably warm as to give one an extrava- 
gant idea of the winter comforts of geese, hens, and 
other feathered creatures. The reaction was rapid 
under these sultry circumstances, and if I had been 
an egg, I should certainly have been hatched in fifteen 
or twenty minutes. In the style of getting down stairs 
there was a vast improvement upon Graefenberg. In- 
stead of being walked down like a galvanized mummy, 
I was picked up by two stalwart Swiss and borne off 
in state, as if I were the Grand Lama or the success- 
ful candidate of an Irish election. Deposited on a 
bench in the clean, spacious bathing-room, I was de- 
lighted by finding every desirable luxury in the way 
of douches, sitting-baths, squirt-guns of various de- 
scriptions, plunges, and so forth. Into the great cis- 
tern where I was finally emptied there rushed, with a 
fall of four or five feet, a really respectable rivulet, up- 
roarious, bubbly, translucent, and of an unchanging 
frigidity throughout the whole round of seasons. This 



78 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

streamlet, the same that once urged the wheels of the 
mill, took its rise, a quarter of a mile distant, in a 
magnificent natural spring, which doubtless drew its 
sparkling treasures through cavernous reservoirs from 
the snows of the neighboring Jura. 

Francois, my present overseer, was a muscular 
Swiss, with a moist blue eye, a skin well burned by 
sunshine and wine, and a nose inclining to scarlet fe- 
ver at the apex. A soured temper and a muddled in- 
tellect completed his resemblance to our old-fashioned 
cider-guzzlers of New Jersey and New England. Un- 
like my old Franz of Graefenberg, he was an infidel as 
regarded the virtues of water, and took no further in- 
terest in his profession than to drink something strong 
in order to keep out the wet. He would never, like 
Prince Hal, have wasted any astonishment on Fal- 
staff's twopennyworth of bread to an intolerable deal 
of sack. When I told him of the Wine-cure, he was 
ravished with the idea, and marveled greatly that so 
excellent a system had not spread over the universe. 
I one day tried to enforce upon him the impression 
that it was a sinful inconsistency in him to drink wine 
while he administered so much water to other people. 

"What!" said he, interrupting his scrubbing, and 
putting his hands on his hips with an air of solemn re- 
monstrance, " we bathmen not drink wine ! I should 
like to know how we would carry all you heavy gen- 
tlemen about the house, then. No, no ; we poor dev- 
ils never could do that on water." 

Francois had been a soldier in the service of Hol- 
land, and used to entertain me with indistinct accounts 
of his adventures in that horizontal country. In re- 



DIVONNE, OR MERMANHOOD IN FRANCE. 79 

turn, I told him, as well as my ignorance of French 
would allow, short stones about our Indians and ne- 
groes ; and, judging from his expressions of astonish- 
ment, I flattered myself that I enlarged his information 
materially concerning the colored and semi-colored 
races. But, in spite of his advantages, Francois con- 
tinued a "blockhead, and was at last turned away for 
getting drunk, beating his wife, and being saucy to 
the doctor. 

At six o'clock there was a heavy supper ; another 
bad idea of our medicine-man. The table exhibited a 
phalanx of hot meats, cold meats, boiled potatoes, cold 
milk, scalded milk, but no sour milk. I observed one 
dyspeptic female lay in two courses of beefsteak for 
nocturnal digestion, and concluded that she calculated 
to work them off by taking a ride of nine or ten hours 
on the nightmare. After supper came another long 
sitting in the parlor, enlivened by music, reading, 
sewing, and plenty of conversation, in which last, by 
the way, I took no part, because I could not speak 
French, and would not speak English. Before three 
days had passed, however, I put bashfulness behind 
me, as I would Satan, and made myself conspicuous 
by talking incessantly a singular jargon approaching 
in sound to French. I began sentences without know- 
ing whether I could finish them ; held long colloquies 
of which I scarcely understood my own half; saluted 
the ladies freely after the sociable Continental fashion ; 
and, in short, made myself perfectly at home in the 
establishment, to which comfortable end I was greatly 
aided by the courteous, gregarious nature of my broth- 
er and sister invalids. 



80 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTEE X. 

PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 

A few evenings after my advent in Divonne a quad- 
rille was started, which proved a failure from the lack 
of capable quadrillians. Then came something which 
succeeded better — a series of games after the fashion 
of "Fox and Geese," or " Button," which, for almost 
every evening of more than a month, kept us in an up- 
roar of merriment. Capital players were these French 
invalids, abounding in queer conceits, rich with perpet- 
ual laughter, and as chirrupy as summer birds. We 
had all ages and characters in our giggling circle, from 
grave old Pastor Passevant, with his mild, wrinkled 
phiz and black velvet cap, down to three flaxen-haired 
Swedish sisters, none of them yet in their teens. Now 
and then, also, a couple of Mr. Monod's sons came over 
from Geneva ; and being wild-pated, rough-and-tumble 
urchins, they contributed not a little to the clamorous- 
ness of our recreations. 

In the game of" Fox and Goose," or, as the French 
call it, " Cat and Rat," a circle is formed, two deep, 
around which there is abundance of steeple-chasing, 
the cat seeking to overtake, and the rat to escape by 
placing himself inside of one of the couples. It would 
have made Tim on the Athenian laugh to see our capa- 
cious doctor cantering around the ring, hard on the 
flight of little Marie, the youngest daughter of the 
Swedish captain, and to hear our general shriek of de- 



PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 81 

light as Marie dodged through some opening in the 
circle and found a goal of safety. Then, perhaps, Mr. 
Monod was started out as the fugitive, and away roll- 
ed the two big men in a ponderous scamper around 
the excited spectators. Then it was the turn of Ca- 
prini, the slatternly, slipshod Italian, who drew forth 
new bursts of merriment by the agitated shuffle of his 
insecure slippers. Then I was the Rat, with the in- 
cessant Cat at my flying heels, while plaudits of laugh- 
ter complimented the vigorous manner in which Young 
America managed his somewhat extensive traveling 
apparatus. 

After the Cat and Eat had worn themselves com- 
pletely out, another play came into general favor. I 
despair of doing it justice, for I doubt whether it is 
known in America, and no one who has not seen it 
can form an idea of its risible character. The com- 
pany formed in a circle facing inward, with some one 
— Mr. Monod, for instance — in the centre. At the 
signal to start, Mr. Monod commenced a ludicrous 
dance, consisting of a series of short jumps, in the per- 
formance of which he advanced across the circle, and 
halted opposite some one, whom we will suppose to 
have been little Marie Seeman. Marie began the 
same step now, though remaining stationary, while 
Mr. Monod, still in a hopping state, lifted up his voice 
in a sing-song to these words : "Bonjour, bo?ijour, 
commere Marie; comment se porte compere Vida?*t/" 
(" Good-day, good-day, goodwife Mary ; how is good- 
man Yidart ?") 

Marie, never ceasing her dance, was bound to reply 
immediately in the same chanting tone: u Je rfen 
D 2 



82 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

sais rien,je ?i'e?i sais rien ; je m!en vais voir" ("I 
do not know, I do not know ; I'll go and see.") 

This dialogue finished, Mr. Monod hopped into Ma- 
rie's place and became quiescent, while it was her bus- 
iness to hop across the circle to goodman Vidart, and 
send him on an errand of inquiry concerning the health 
of some other goodman or goodwife. And thus the 
game went on, until we had jumped and sung our- 
selves tired, or the time-piece on the mantel warned 
us that we had best prepare for the morrow. Sapless 
and uninteresting as all this may seem in description, 
it was most ludicrous to see it in execution ; to look 
on while two persons of contrasting heights and ages 
hopped up and down in face of each other, like two 
chickens fighting ; to note their arms dangling absurd- 
ly by their sides, their heads balanced stiffly, and their 
faces crimsoned with laughter. 

Then there were riddles, guessings of proverbs, and 
various plays attended by forfeits. It was once allot- 
ted to me as a punishment to dance some ridiculous 
dance ; and having, in the leisure of my boyhood, mas- 
tered the negro Juba, I gave it out with marked em- 
phasis. It proved a season hit ; it was comique ! 
charmant ! tres curieux ! Not only was I called on 
for a repetition night after night, but several persons 
wanted to learn the step of me ; and one of the most 
fanatical in carrying this point was a severe Swiss 
minister, a man of the Boanerges type, with stern 
black eyes, and a long black beard of apostolic digni- 
ty. Over and over again did my reverend disciple 
carefully watch my feet while I danced the Juba, and 
then set himself with solemn perseverance to imitate 



PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 83 

the complicated caper. Such a blessing followed his 
efforts that he very soon had the step at his fingers' 
ends, or rather at his toes' ends ; and day after day 1 
used to hear him double-shuffle, or hoe corn and dig 
potatoes around the billiard-room and down the pas- 
sage by way of a reaction after his bath. He told me 
that he wanted to amuse his children with the dance, 
and I only hope that it diverted them as much as it 
diverted their papa. 

The gem of our little company, the pet of every 
body, male and female, the social luxury necessary to 
our full enjoyment, was Ida. When half past nine 
of the evening came, and she had to go to her aunt's 
room, our circle remained like a ring from which the 
diamond has been taken. French girls, and girls in 
general on the Continent, are kept under such severe 
restraint that they can seldom speak or act out their 
real character. Silent, reserved, easily embarrassed, 
they follow their mothers like shadows, as inseparable, 
as quiet, and almost as little noticed. Ida had more 
of this repressed manner than usual, and seemed one 
of those persons who learn too early to feel in silence, 
either hopeless of sympathy, or shrinking from the 
idea of being penetrated and known by another. The 
heedless merriment of our games was exactly calcula- 
ted to tear aside this veil, thrown around her by pre- 
cocity or education ; and she never appeared so well, 
so true to the pretty artlessness of girlhood, as when 
she had to sit down and lean her head against the 
wall, because the doctor or Mr. Monod was so funny! 

In spite of Ida's reserve, and although we always 
conversed in a tongue that was foreign to at least one 



84 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

of us, I could see that she was more than commonly 
clever. She played well, danced as girls of fifteen us- 
ually dance, had a good knowledge of German, and no 
bad one of English. Her accent in our language was 
just foreign enough to be as delightful as quaint mu- 
sic. It was accounted very unlucky for us all when, 
about six weeks after my arrival, Ida's aunt got well, 
and they consequently left Divonne. A coach was 
driven to the door, and piled with trunks so big that 
it seemed as if there were two or three coaches stand- 
ing on top of each other. Madame Duprez kissed all 
the married ladies, and shook hands with all the min- 
isters ; Ida threw her arms around a girl friend, and 
both burst into sobs as their wet cheeks touched ; 
the driver cracked his whip a dozen times in succes- 
sion ; the shaggy horses gave a spasmodic scramble, as 
if to see which should be foremost ; and, with the grim 
steadiness of destiny, the black coach-top slid in be- 
tween my eyes and a pretty face which had aided to 
light up some weeks of life in a foreign land. 

For six weeks or two months after my arrival, a 
quarter of an hour was devoted every morning to a 
religious Protestant service held in some private room. 
It was attended by a majority of the patients, for we 
were nearly all Protestants, and boasted quite a body 
of living divinity in the shape of four Swiss clergymen, 
one English, and the two celebrated brothers, Fred- 
erick and Adolph Monod, of Paris. A chapter of the 
Bible, a few quiet observations on the text, a hymn, 
and a short prayer, all in French, constituted the form 
of devotion. On Sunday we sometimes went to a 
neighboring chapel, belonging to the doctor or his 



PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 85 

brother, where we listened to a regular service and ser- 
mon from a Huguenot preacher. Occasionally, too, 
we walked over to Crassy, a Swiss frontier village 
about two miles distant, and sat at the feet of its jo- 
cund pastor, the Kev. M. Taillefer, a man more given 
to making sinners laugh than to converting them. 

Many of our people were of the most serious, evan- 
gelical class in France and Switzerland — such persons 
as the French respectfully designate as de'vots, or con- 
temptuously as Methodistes. Those from Geneva were 
followers of Merle d'Aubigne and Cesar Malan ; those 
from France, of such men as Frederick and Adolph Mo- 
nod. Hitherto in Europe I had encountered no char- 
acters of this type — no approach, even, to the serious 
piety and incessant Christianizing zeal of these my 
present companions. They seemed to me the most 
charming possible examples of those who are com- 
monly called pious people ; amiable in manners, cheer- 
ful in conversation, conscious of the beauty of earth 
and of their brotherhood with humanity, yet never 
forgetful of their mystic life, their heavenly calling, 
the price of their redemption. In short, they com- 
bined the existence of this world and the existence of 
the invisible more easily, gracefully, and lovingly than 
any class of persons that I had before seen. Yet 
sometimes this mixture of two modes of sentiment 
and being was carried to such results, that, to my 
American eyes, they took the form of a strange incon- 
sistency. I remember one pale Swiss lady, of fragile 
form and impressible nerves, who was possessed by a 
singular religious zeal, and who, for instance, did not 
hesitate one Sunday to supply the lack of a clergy- 



86 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

man by reading aloud a chapter in the Bible, and then 
praying before us all, men as well as women, her hus- 
band standing among us. It was, I think, during the 
afternoon of that very day that I saw her sitting lan- 
guidly in the saloon, perusing a volume of the Tauch- 
nitz edition of English authors. I was curious enough 
to. ask her what book she had, for I felt sure that those 
Tauchnitz bindings covered no works of devotion. 
Without the slightest hesitation, she placed in my 
hands some novel of modern society. I looked in her 
face earnestly, but there was not a trace of annoyance 
there at my inquisitiveness ; not a remote conscious- 
ness of any contrast between the book and the day. 

" Ah ! it is a novel," I said. 

"Yes; my poor head is so wearied that I must 
give it some relaxation." 

She took the romance again, and went on reading 
with all the placidity of a quiet conscience. 

Some years ago, when the Free Kirk of Scotland 
made its exodus from the Established Church, a sim- 
ilar movement — in fact, an echo of that one — took 
place in various countries of the Continent. In most 
of them, especially in France, it failed miserably. 
Frederick Monod, formerly one of the best attended 
preachers in Paris, saw his congregation diminish to 
sixty or seventy people, principally chambermaids, 
while his fifteen thousand francs of salary, a large 
stipend in France, fell to an indefinitely small sum, 
which came, as the Arabs say, when God pleased. 
In Switzerland the result was not wonderfully better, 
and the free congregations mostly, if not universally, 
found easy room in insignificant chapels. A good 



PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 87 

deal of jealousy and ill-will naturally sprang up be- 
tween the two churches, the stronger one, as it could 
not persecute the other physically, rather liking to call 
it hard names and poke fun at it. The term Metho- 
diste, especially, is freely applied to the Independents, 
and generally rolls out of orthodox lips with an into- 
nation of hearty, contemptuous dislike. The Metho- 
distes, by the way, are the best Christians of the two, 
as far as I am capable of judging. 

Pastor Taillefer, of Crassy, was of the Established 
Church, and held Methodists in particular disrelish. 
As I have already said, he was a jolly man, who had 
little disposition to trouble a body about heaven or 
hell, and whose ideas of pastoral duty fitted him as 
easy as so many old shoes. One Sunday he gave no- 
tice that there would be no preaching after dinner, and 
then drove into Geneva, a distance of fifteen miles, to 
see M. Poitevin make an ascension with his famous 
aeronautic pony. I easily excused Madame Lasalle 
for reading her novel, but I am inclined to be hard 
upon Pastor Taillefer, and to affirm that he broke the 
Sabbath. It is possible, indeed, that he thought Poi- 
tevin was going clear up, and that he wished to verify 
his conceptions of the ascent of Elijah ; but I am very 
much afraid that he was only actuated by a worldly 
desire to see a balloon. 

I have said nothing about the scenery of Divonne, 
or the interesting objects in its vicinity. It was in 
France, as I have already observed, but so hard on 
the borders of Switzerland that a walk of a quarter of 
a mile eastward brought you to a little bridge, the oth- 
er end of which rested on the soil of the mountain re- 



88 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

public. It was no mountain here, however, for on 
every side stretched the valley of Lake Lemam Three 
miles from Divonne, distinctly visible from the hill 
back of the village, rolled those waves of wonderful 
beauty which Byron, and Rousseau have made famous. 
Beyond them were the hills of Savoy ; and behind 
these were mountains on mountains, peeping over each 
other in increasing altitude and pearliness, until the 
vista closed in the awful pyramid of Mont Blanc ; 
yes, long rows of snowy mountains, like a Titanic 
army of spectres, towering from north to south through 
a hundred miles or more, in an array of terrible, blind- 
ing whiteness. The sun threw a glorious mantle upon 
them as he bade them a nightly adieu, and went away 
into the golden west. Very wonderful also, and such 
as I have seen in no other part of earth, were the sun- 
rises that came over them in the winter mornings. 
While the enormous line of peaks still remained of a 
deathly, ashy white, all the air above them burned 
with splendor, raying like a halo, as if the mountains 
were sanctified, and had put on, not only their robes 
of spotlessness, but their crowns of glory. It is the 
sole place where I have yet seen sunrises as lovely, 
brilliant, and impressive as any sunset. Caprini, in a 
fit of enthusiasm far beyond his character, said that 
the clime of his native Italy was beckoning to him 
from across the Alps. 

Three miles from Divonne, going toward the lake, 
was the family residence of the De Staels. Six or 
seven miles farther north, directly upon the shore, was 
Nyon, a picturesque little city surmounted by a gi- 
gantic old chateau. In the principal street stood a 



PASTIMES IN DIVONNE. 89 

bronze statue, of rude antique workmanship, which the 
people called Maitre Jacques / a grim-visaged, stiff- 
kneed fellow, in complete armor, who looked as if he 
might have been a very ungovernable sort of " Master 
James" while living, but whose sole, placable business 
it is now to remind people that the Canton cle Vaud 
was once no republic, but divided into feudal estates, 
and ruled by Savoyard governors. I could learn noth- 
ing of who Maitre Jacques was, or what he had done 
to be thus commemorated, or what he was maitre of; 
only I fancied, from the completeness of his knightly 
harness, that, if he was the master of any thing in par- 
ticular, it was of the noble art of self-defense. The 
mystery attached to "Master James" interested me 
more, perhaps, than his true story could have done, 
and I never visited Nyon without passing a few mo- 
ments in the contemplation of his ugly and solemn 
physiognomy. 

Beyond Nyon, on the lake, lay Vevay, and Clarens, 
and Chillon, and somewhat behind them, on a lofty 
hill, rose Lausanne ; but the reader knows that it is 
not the purpose of my book to hash up celebrities. 
Returning to our little, inconsequential Divonne, I 
will observe that it became quite interesting when 
you surveyed it in contrast to the Protestant villages 
of the Canton cle Vaud. These last were tidy, solidly 
built, nicely whitewashed, abounding in bee-hives (that 
tolerably sure sign of a provident people), and inhabit- 
ed by broad, burly, vigorous men, evidently one of the 
sturdiest, wealthiest peasant populations in Europe. 
No neglected fields were visible here; no musty, tum- 
ble-down houses ; no rag-tag-and-bobtail population. 



90 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Divonne, on the contrary, Catholic Divonne, blessed 
with the true Church, holy water, the Bishop of Frei- 
burg, and all those orthodox advantages, was as mean, 
dirty a little village as you shall see marring the beauty 
of a summer's day. A whole company of soldiers kept 
it in quietness, and secured its allegiance to Paris. 
Martial law spread her crimson wings over its muddy 
streets and shabby rooms ; scores of bayonets occa- 
sionally turned up its asparagus-beds and potato- 
patches to search for illegal pikes or rebellious car- 
bines. In the Canton de Vaud I saw the Swiss 
farmers and mechanics practicing with their own sure 
rifles, not a soldier on guard to keep them from aiming 
at their rulers, and no holy water near to wet their 
republican primings. 



PEKSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 91 



CHAPTER XL 

PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 

Oue society was composed for a time of simple cit- 
izens only, but a month or more after my arrival came 
some specimens of European nobility. They were 
the Countess of ManteufFel, with her son and daughter, 
Germans by descent, but Russians by nationality, be- 
longing in one of those Sclavonic provinces on the 
Baltic which were anciently conquered and feudalized 
by adventurers of the Teutonic race. They bore no 
relationship to the famous Russian minister of the 
same name ; their very armorial bearings were differ- 
ent. The elder countess was a lady of tall and state- 
ly form, with a mild dignity in her face and air, eyes 
of calm azure, and high, regular features, marking a 
beauty which must have been noticeable thirty years 
ago. She looked and stepped very nobly, yet very 
quietly and sweetly, although at the bottom of all 
there seemed to be a hidden spring of proud reserve. 

The count, a man of twenty-five years, and his sis- 
ter, two or three years younger, were very different 
from their mother. They showed ordinary round 
physiognomies, with blue, laughing eyes, curling hair, 
and brief noses. The brother was a quiet, plain-man- 
nered man, a good fellow from the bottom of his heart, 
with no more air of pretension about him than if he had 
been born a shoeblack. His sister exactly resembled 
him in easy, kindly simplicity and unobtrusiveness. 



92 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

One so little expects to see homely people do beau- 
tiful things, that I looked on with admiring wonder 
when an action of charming grace fell from this young 
countess. In company with two or three other ladies, 
all busy over books or embroidery, she sat in the sa- 
loon one evening, unobservant that her mother had en- 
tered. Mademoiselle Arnaud, a young Genevoise, 
rose, sprang to a chair, brought it to the table, and 
with a pretty gesture invited the elder countess to sit 
down by them. The daughter rose also, but she had 
been anticipated. Without a word, she went up to 
Mademoiselle Arnaud, bent down and kissed her cheek, 
then quietly resumed her place and her occupation. 
No hesitancy, no awkwardness, no ostentation ap- 
peared in this little tribute of thanks, which was as 
naturally given as it was conceived amiably. 

These ManteufYels were fair specimens of the sim- 
pler and more unpretending class of European nobili- 
ty. I must do that style of humanity the justice to 
say that, as far* as I had an opportunity of watching 
its manners, they were remarkable for nothing so much 
as naturalness and good taste. I was surprised to find 
in them less haughtiness, less reserve, less affectation 
of superiority than in many of our own leading people, 
or even some few of the upper bourgeoisie of Europe. 
Pride incomparable there may be in the soul, but on 
the surface only a fascinating courtesy and unpreten- 
tiousness. The Russian nobility have the reputation 
of being the haughtiest in manner, at the same time 
that they are the least ancient and most plebeian in or- 
igin. A German noble is seldom troubled by fits of 
arrogance except when he thinks a commoner of his 



PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 93 

own nation is too presumptuous and persevering in his 
approaches. The English aristocracy, what very little 
I have seen of it, has a cold, quiet, passionless civility, 
which jars on no stranger's self-respect, and may con- 
ceal, Heaven knows what, of immeasurable haughti- 
ness or sincere amiability. But of all nobilities that 
I have observed, the Italian seemed to me the most 
facile, sociable, unassuming. Wonderfully good-na- 
tured, good-for-nothing fellows are those bachelor 
counts and marquesses who haunt the cafes and drive 
on the promenades of Italian cities ; talking about 
operas and ices, comedies and women; on bowing 
terms with every body, from the Grand-Duke to some 
insignificant clerk in the post-office; always idle and 
useless, always glad to be amused, always particularly 
civil to a foreigner. I remember one elderly Neapol- 
itan duke s a man of real position and a respectable au- 
thor, who was the most cozy, comfortable, chatty, in- 
consequential old gentleman that was ever perfectly at 
home in talk and sunshine. Such are my general im- 
pressions of the manners of European aristocracy, the 
best behaved class of humanity that I ever had the 
pleasure of observing. 

Two families of the old country-nobility of France 
resided in our immediate neighborhood. About twen- 
ty rods from the Establishment, on a high, abrupt 
green knoll, which overlooked the village and the plain, 
stood the chateau of the Count of Divonne. It was a 
quadrangular modern building, like an ordinary coun- 
try-house, with no pretensions to magnificence beyond 
its command over that majestic landscape ; in short, a 
very unworthy successor to the knightly old castle 



94 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

which it replaced, and of whose martial masonry a 
fragment still peeped humbly from the garden wall. 
The count himself was a kind of modern reconstruc- 
tion, being, if I recollect right, only a cousin of the 
direct line of the family. I never heard him speak, 
as he had few dealings with our Protestant doctor, 
and none whatever with his Calvinistic invalids. He 
was a tall, dark man of about forty, of good appear- 
ance and grave manners. He was anti-Republican, fer- 
vently Catholic, and his house was for some time the 
home of that famously troublesome Jesuit and exile, 
the Bishop of Freiburg. I inquired the income of this 
French aristocrat, and was told that he might have 
about four thousand dollars a year, which my inform- 
ants seemed to consider a very pretty sum. 

Our other feudal neighbor was a tall, stout, blond 
man of about thirty, called Baron de Pres. His cha- 
teau, a building as modern as the count's, and still 
plainer in architecture, lay a mile and a half from the Es- 
tablishment, just on the frontier of Switzerland. The 
baron had the healthy sunburn and large muscular 
frame of the neighboring farmers of the Canton de Vaud. 
He had been little in Paris, so that his manners and 
talk had a provincial smack, reminding one much more 
of a Swiss than a Frenchman ; but his blood was real- 
ly ancient, and his features had the true aristocratic 
type, a Grecian inclining to aquiline. His father dis- 
tinguished himself on the insurgent side in the first 
French Revolution, since which the family has always 
been republican, or at least liberal, in politics. Our 
baron seemed to me one of the sensible men of France, 
a moderate Democrat of the Cavaignac school, the only 



PEESONS AND POLITICS IN DIYONNE. 95 

set under whom the republic was possible. In man- 
ners he was rather shy of strangers, but a good fellow 
at heart, and a boisterous joker when cozily settled at 
the table of his crony the doctor. 

Turning from an invalid aristocracy to our invalid 
plebeianism in the Establishment, I am arrested by a 
recollection of the Italian Caprini. A little slovenly 
fellow of twenty-four, with a venerable air, which ap- 
peared to consist in looking very snuffy and shuffy, he 
always seemed dirty in spite of his four washings a 
day, and was, on the whole, what might be called an 
ugly man, although his features were regular, his dark 
cheek flushed with color, and his eyes of a fine hazel. 
He spoke French pretty fluently, but with one of the 
strongest and most disagreeable accents in the world. 
On his alien lips the simplest sounds of the language 
withered into something outlandish and incomprehen- 
sible. Chose became sose ; and argent, arzent. Some 
of our Frenchmen, forbearing as that nation usually is 
to blunderers in its syntax, got out of all grammatical 
patience with Caprini, and used to badger him like 
schoolmasters about his heathenish dialogue. "My 
God !" said one of them, in a transport of impatience, 
" you are insupportable ; you have certain phrases that 
come from the other world." 

Caprini, unlike the Piedmontese in general, was a 
supreme coward, and the mischievous set who haunt- 
ed our billiard-room had several good jokes against 
him on the score of his sensitive nervous system. He 
sometimes visited JSTyon, which was about six miles 
from Divonne, the road to it leading through a fine 
plain, well cultivated, and sprinkled with country- 



96 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

seats. A couple of our people were lounging along 
this road about dusk, and had reached the shadow of 
a small grove, through which shone the white walls 
of a gentleman's country-residence, when from beyond 
a turn in the route they heard footsteps approaching 
in great haste. In a moment more Caprini bolted 
round the corner, holding a cocked pistol straight be- 
fore him, and looking from right to left among the 
trees with as much alarm as if, to his certain knowl- 
edge, the forty thieves had been hidden among the 
peaceable and well-pruned foliage. At sight of his 
bath-fellows he gave a joyful shout, and ran forward 
to meet them. "What is the matter?" said they. 
" What are you doing with that pistol ? Have you 
seen any body ?" 

" Oh, nobody ; but I thought it looked dangerous 
in this forest ; and then I was walking fast, and rob- 
bers always think you have money when you walk 
fast ; and so I took out my pistol to deter them from 
an attack." 

His hearers set up a shout of scornful laughter, and 
told him that the country was as safe as a bath-tub. 

A few days after this perilous adventure he had a 
disagreement over a bet at billiards with a Frenchman 
named Trocon, a pugnacious, powerful fellow, who 
would have had no fear of settling the dispute corpo- 
really, either with fists or pistols. Frenchmen, how- 
ever, seldom proceed to personal violence in their quar- 
rels ; usually, if the dispute can not be decided by 
words, falling back quietly on the duel, so that the 
Italian was quite safe from being cuffed by his Her- 
culean opponent. But as Trocon happened to be ab- 



PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIYONNE. 97 

;sent at Nyon the next day, our jokers got up a report 
that he had gone there to procure seconds and pistols, 
with the intention of washing out his affront in Ca- 
Iprini's blood. The most horrible accounts were cir- 
culated concerning his ferocity of temper, and his 
deadly feats of marksmanship in former grave affairs 
of the kind. The poor Italian fled from the now in- 
sufferable billiard-room, and sought consolation in 
pouring his tale of woe into my bosom. He had lost 
command over his French for the moment, and spoke 
in his native language. In an agony of stammering 
and trembling he pretended to take his fate coolly, and 
paraded a philosophical indifference to death. "Cosa 
mi iiTvporta la vita?" " What do I care for life ?" said 
he, looking as if he would give his ears for an assur- 
ance that he should exist twenty-four hours longer. 
To my eternal honor, I was pitiful, and tried to con- 
vince him that our billiard-room jesters were only 
cracking a joke at his expense. At night Trocon came 
back from Nyon with no pistols, and laughed uproar- 
iously but pacifically when informed of the tales and 
terrors of the day. 

Winter was now approaching, and my comrades be- 
gan to take flight for their homes. The two brothers 
Monocl left us, one after the other, each departure be- 
ing a heavy drain on the interest and sprightliness of 
our society. I shall always remember, for another 
reason, when Frederick Monod went away, and that is, 
that I was then kissed for the first time by one of my 
own sex. "A la Franqaise" said this delightful pas- 
tor, and, before I recovered from my surprise, we had 
kissed each other on both cheeks. It was not so bad 

E 



98 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

as I liad expected, but I can imagine that it would be 
much more agreeable to exchange the same salute with 
a woman. 

Very strange it seems to Europeans of the Conti- 
nent that, in England and America, men never bestow 
this token of affection on their male friends, and, above 
all, that it is never exchanged between male .relations. 
" Queer people," said the doctor, talking of this sub- 
ject. "An Englishman will not kiss his own broth- 
er." 

"Yes," said Prince Georges L , a Russian, 

" and, worse than that, a father in that chilly country 
will refuse to put his lips to the cheek of his son. 
The son has perhaps been in India twenty years ; he 
comes home, and lands at London ; they meet on the 
quay, and shake hands as if they had parted over 
night." 

"Very unpleasant manners," rejoined the doctor. 
"And just notice how cold and discourteous they arc 
to ladies. There is Mr. Reynolds, one of my patients, 
a man of learning, and, they say, a gentleman born ; 
but see him meet our lady friends in the garden or by 
the fountains. He never says ' Good-morning ;' he 
even passes them without raising his hat." 

" But," interposed I, " Mr. Reynolds does not know 
all the ladies ; he speaks to those he is acquainted 
with." 

" But he ought to salute the others when he passes 
them ; every body does it," insisted the doctor. 

"No ; there excuse me. Every body does it here, 
but not in England and America. More than that, 
you are not permitted there to salute a lady with whom 



PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 99 

you are not on speaking terms. It would be consid- 
ered an impertinence; you would not be answered." 

" What ! not when you were living under the same 
roof?" 

"Not even then." 

"Well, there it is again," persisted the doctor. 
" The people are kind enough at heart, but iced all 
over in manners by their absurd reserve. Give me 
something more civil in appearance, I say, even if there 
is not much soul in it." 

During the autumn a great deal of rain fell, and De- 
cember marked its passage by some light dashes of 
snow. They were only temporary visitors from the 
top of the neighboring Jura, and usually degenerated 
into slush and mud within twenty-four hours ; but ev- 
ery week we could see the white drapery of the east- 
ern peaks reaching farther down toward Leman, as if 
the prudent Alps were letting out the tucks in their 
winter garments. As the frosts thickened around us, 
we garnished our feet with those huge wooden shoes, 
called sabots, so much worn by the French peasantry. 
I stared in amazement at my own pedals when I first 
saw them cased in those ponderous pieces of carpen- 
try ; and I certainly never made such tracks before 
nor since as I then imprinted in the snowdrifts which 
thicker and thicker gathered over our deserted land- 
scapes. It costs time and pains (many pains) to get 
one's feet Used to these whitewood slippers, even with 
the protection of an interior sock of woven list ; but 
they are necessities, for, except in large cities, India- 
rubbers are unknown on the Continent, and ordinary 
shoeing was no match for the wear and wet of hydrop- 



100 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

athy in a Juratic winter; for into the winter I was 
steadily going, under a full sail of moist sheets and 
towels, as heroic in pursuit of health as a Nantucket 
whaler in chase of polaric blubber. I was still gain- 
ing on my malady, but not so rapidly as at Graefen- 
berg, perhaps because I was now very near the far- 
thest limits of recovery, and it was therefore harder to 
improve. 

In one object of my residence in a French Water- 
cure — that is, in acquiring the language — I had been 
even more successful than I anticipated. Without 
numerous and excellent letters of introduction, I could 
not possibly have obtained otherwheres and otherwise 
so much good society as I found at Divonne. It is 
vexatious to an American to discover how long he may 
live in a city of the Continent, and yet have occasion 
to address none of its inhabitants except coachmen, 
waiters, and other persons whose grammar and con- 
versation are equally unedifying. Boarding-houses at 
Paris, for instance, are almost unknown ; and those 
two or three which exist are filled with Anglo-Saxons, 
who come there in the hope of talking French, but 
talk only English. At the hotels you meet travelers 
and transient natives, who stay but a night or so, and 
with whom you form no intimacy. But at Divonne, 
in a week's time, I found myself on sociable terms with 
fifty people, nearly all well educated, and some of them 
belonging to the best classes of European society. Re- 
serve would have been difficult in our circumstances, 
and no one had the bad taste to attempt it. Thus I 
heard at Divonne not only better French than would 
have been vouchsafed to me at Paris, but more in a 



PERSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 101 

week than I should have heard there in a month. 
During about four months, indeed, I spoke no other 
language, not meeting in that period a solitary En- 
glishman or American. The consequence of all this 
was a facile acquisition of words and accent which 
surprised me, and won numberless eulogiums from my 
native acquaintance. My object in noting these cir- 
cumstances is to show Americans abroad where to 
learn a foreign tongue, and how. Not in the unsocial 
populousness of great cities ; not by taking bachelor 
lodgings and dining at the restaurants ; but at some 
table cV/wte, where you meet from day to day the same 
faces, and, best of all, when such a table can be found 
in the freedom of a country resort. 

To get along faster on my grammatical stilts (for 
thus awkward are the first steps in a foreign tongue), 
I took a teacher, a young man, the clerk of the vil- 
lage lawyer. He was not of the best quality, for he 
had something of the accent of the district ; and, in ad- 
dition, he was entirely unaccustomed to the style of for- 
eigners in French, so that my idioms often puzzled 
him to that degree that he could hardly tell whether 
they were right or wrong. But he was useful in mak- 
ing me write regularly, as also in giving me conversa- 
tional practice, after my fellow-patients had mostly de- 
parted. He used to come every afternoon, in his suit 
of plain gray, and sit for an hour or two over my com- 
fortable stove, discussing the composition of the morn- 
ing, and closing with a miscellaneous talk on all things 
and some others. One day our tongues rambled on 
to the state of the commonwealths of South America. 
"I suppose," said he, "that you will seize upon those 



102 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

countries some day. They are devilishly behindhand 
{diablement en arriere), and want somebody to start 
them on." The expression amused me. 

Politics was our favorite subject, especially French 
politics, and its different phases in struggling toward 
a true and steady Republicanism. He believed in the 
Republic ; at all events, passionately hoped in it ; and 
he looked forward to another outburst in the spring — 
a new strife for a complete liberty, which should alto- 
gether triumph. "Do not resume your travels for 
some months," said he; "our elections come on soon, 
and then there will be a rising. When France rises, 
Europe rises ; and you will not then find a country 
near us in which you can travel safely. Here you 
are not in danger, but it would be different in Paris or 
in the cities of Italy. When the people strikes again 
it will punish the traitors, and by mistake you might 
fall in some dark night for another." 

Whether he said this from a knowledge of the plots 
which were then weaving to entangle the Prince-Pres- 
ident, or whether he was simply a looker-on in Venice, 
and but talked on guess-work, I never asked him and 
never knew. An answer was preparing to his oracle 
such as he little expected. 

On the fourth of December, 1852, as the half a doz- 
en patients who still remained were sitting down to 
dinner, the Swiss pastor Berteau walked into the 
room, holding out a Journal des Debats just from 
Paris. His fine lips curled contemptuously under his 
jetty beard, and his black eyes flashed with a strange 
mixture of scorn and anger. Swiss and Republican to 
the bottom of his soul ; proud of his national liberty 



PEKSONS AND POLITICS IN DIYONNE. 103 

as Lucifer of his morning supremacy, he grasped in 
his hand the condemnation of a people which had 
tried in vain to be free. " Hurrah for the Eepublic I" 
he said, in a fierce, contemptuous tone, and flung the 
journal on the table before the doctor. 

"What do you mean?" asked the other, with a 
stare of vague inquietude. 

" Hurrah for the Republic ! Eead there," repeated 
Berteau, placing his finger on a passage of two or 
three lines at the bottom of a column. The doctor 
raised the paper and read aloud this announcement : 
" Paris is in a state of siege. The National Assem- 
bly is dissolved. The streets are occupied by troops." 

A veil of sudden, hopeless dismay fell on every 
countenance. There was an expectation, a silence, a 
turning of the head to see if any one were near. A 
few words, very few, expressed the astonishment, and 
fewer still the wrath of the auditors. Even in that 
distant republican corner of France the cotip d'etat 
was received unresisted, undenounced, in stupor, and 
in terror. Directly opposite me sat a man who for 
weeks past had been openly swearing vengeance 
against the enemies of French liberty, and prophesy- 
ing an imminent hour when they should be swept 
into sudden nothingness. Not a word now passed 
his lips at this condemnation of his hopes ; and after 
the first stare of amazement, he never lifted his eyes 
from his food. It seemed as if every hand were par- 
alyzed by unseen manacles, and every head bent to- 
ward the glitter of the guillotine by an irresistible fas- 
cination, as flowers are drawn toward the brightness 
of the sun. This man — this Red Republican, who sat 



104 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

before me, rose from the table speechless, and lived for 
weeks thereafter in a silent terror greater than his 
noisy confidence of before. 

The day following we heard that our Eepublican 
friend, Baron de Pres, had fled across the frontier to 
the Swiss village of Crassy. Trocon, my teacher, and 
I made him a visit, and found him in a hired room, 
with a good look-out toward France, and three or four 
rifles and fowling-pieces standing loaded in one corner. 
"Here I am," said he, "running away from the coup 
cVetat. I was in no particular danger, that I know 
of; but my opinions are understood, and I thought it 
best to be on the safe side of the frontier. There is 
no telling what fancies a prefect of police might take 
to one in a time like this. But I tell you one thing, 
Trocon ; we must all turn Protestants. France will 
never be free as long as these cursed priests rule the 
souls of our population. Hereafter I mean to go pret- 
ty often to the Protestant church, if it is only to spite 
the shaved devils. Sacred name of names ! it is the 
sole revenge they have left us. And to think of being 
fooled in this way by an idiot — a dull, slow ass — an 
accident. This Louis Napoleon is not a man ; he is 
only an event. Well, events succeed each other ; I 
am waiting for ours." 

Good reader, Catholic reader, reactionist reader, suf- 
fer the baron to rail, or even swear, in the bitterness 
of his disappointment and the foam of his impotent 
wrath. He has been cheated of his republic, and 
rendered for years to come a suspected man, whose 
rise is impossible except on the smoky wings of hy- 
pocrisy. He sits in a hired apartment on foreign soil, 



PEESONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 105 

looking at his lands and chateau, without daring to 
pluck the fruit of the one or darken the threshold of 
the other. He knows that thousands who believe as 
he does are thus situated, and even as much worse off 
as prison and death can make them, solely that Louis 
Napoleon may reign unmolested. Let him rave. 

News soon came of fighting in Paris, barricades 
hastily thrown up, desperate struggles on the Boule- 
vards, alternations of victory and defeat. The hopes 
of our village Republicans were raised only to be dashed 
harder to earth. We learned that the troops remained 
faithful to the usurper, and the usurper faithful in 
audacity and energy to himself. A letter came to a 
young villager from his brother, a soldier in the gar- 
rison of Lyons. "We are drunk all the while," he 
wrote; "the men get double pay; the officers have 
received large presents according to their grades." 

Reports followed that a rising, sullied by deep atroc- 
ities, had taken place along the frontier districts bor- 
dering on western Switzerland and Savoy; that one 
department was entirely in the hands of the insurrec- 
tionists, and that the fire was creeping from valley to 
valley of that wooded and broken country. Then 
came news of marchings of troops, provincial prisons 
full of Republicans, and a corpse-like quiet in the 
population. 

Over the ruinous track of the coup oVetat came the 
lying elections, like a mirage succeeding to a simoom. 
Fountains, rivers, oceans of liberty were advertised, 
and the people of France was driven up to satisfy its 
thirst for liberty at a ballot-box as densely surrounded 
by bayonets as a spring by bulrushes. Eighty soldiers 
E 2 



106 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

of the line watched the freemen of our village as they 
tremblingly exercised the glorious right of suffrage. 
Billets marked Out were printed for those who were 
in favor of making Louis Napoleon President for ten 
years, billets marked Non for those who did not think 
him worthy of that considerable proof of confidence. 
I observed that the latter were so distinguished by a 
black line around the edge that they could not possibly 
be folded in a manner to have them mistaken for the 
others. The Count of Divonne sat by the ballot-box, 
sternly noting every man who deposited a lined billet ; 
and it was thought an act of immense hardihood when 
Trocon, my Republican friend, laid down a broad, un- 
disguised JYbn. Our village, well known as violently 
Liberal, if not Eed, gave a large majority of votes for 
the Prince-President. How many of these patriotic 
Ouis were the suffrages of the Count of Divonne, and 
how many were deposited by men who neither dared 
vote otherwise nor stay away, would be a curious 
problem, difficult of solution. 

One of the leading lawyers of Gex, a small city 
about eight miles from Divonne, undertook to distrib- 
ute billets of Non to his fellow-citizens. The Prefect 
of Police sent for him, and received him with an air of 
grim confidence. "I understand, Monsieur Leroux," 
said he, " that you are distributing billets of JYbn" 

"It is true, Monsieur the Prefect. I believe that 
I have a constitutional right to do so." 

" Oh, certainly, Monsieur ; no one disputes your 
right. But allow me to observe that, if you distribute 
any more of them, the consequences may be very un- 
pleasant to yourself, Monsieur Leroux — extremely 



PEKSONS AND POLITICS IN DIVONNE. 107 

unpleasant. Observe, Monsieur," continued the pre- 
fect, taking a pinch of snuff, and looking the lawyer 
steadily in the eyes, "I do not wish to interfere with 
your liberty ; I only forewarn you of a very probable 
and very disagreeable result to the continuance of 
your present conduct. Good-day, Monsieur Leroux. 
I have the honor to salute you." 

Leroux himself told me this story, and frankly ac- 
knowledged that, from fear of those evil consequences 
so plainly hinted at by the friendly official, he took 
care to be seen with no more bundles of negative bil- 
lets in his Republican fingers. 

I asked my teacher if the immense mass of peasant- 
ry had not Democratic principle enough to rise against 
such contemptuous menaces and cajoleries. " But," 
said he, " they know nothing about it. How should 
they ? They have had no political education. They 
say, 'Oh, we must have some one there at Paris.' 
They would vote for a king under a republic, and not 
know that they had committed a contradiction. For 
the rest, they will obey the priests." 

Such were the elections with which Louis Napoleon 
attempted to drape his usurpation. France may have 
fallen lower at other times, but she never fell more 
ridiculously. It was bad enough to be beaten thus 
like a hound ; but to be forced to gambol and wag her 
tail under the rod was ludicrously contemptible. 



108 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WINTER IN DIVONNE. 

Subsequent to the bustle of those farcical elections 
came several months remarkable for little to me be- 
sides winter and loneliness. The patients of Divonne 
were not hardened to cold by the enthusiasm of the 
Graefenbergers, so that only two braves, Trocon and 
I, remained to encounter the inclemency of January 
packings and douches. The climate of the Valley of 
Geneva is not at any season of the year a very perfect 
one, except in two or three sheltered nooks like Mon- 
treuil; while in winter it is boisterous and glacial 
enough to make a white bear curse the north pole, and 
wish himself at the equator. No great quantity of 
snow fell — not more, perhaps, at any one time than five 
or six inches ; but from the Jura and the opposite Alps 
descended a frozen breath which neutralized our warm- 
est noontide. Sometimes for a week together the air 
was gray with a chilly fog, rendering the immense sur- 
rounding peaks as invisible as if they had no exist- 
ence, sheeting the whole lower landscape like a spec- 
tral shroud, freezing with a slow persistency, and grad- 
ually covering every branch, and twig, and frostbitten 
herb with an icy filigree, until, when the sun came out, 
the valley seemed like a fairy land, opulent with forests 
of feathery silver fruiting into diamonds. Then the 
bise, or north wind, rushed furiously down from the 



WINTER IN DIVONNE. 109 

upper end of the lake, replacing the still, dull frigidity 
of the mist by an equal monotony of whistling blasts, 
chill, strong, and unwearying. 

This bise is about the same thing as the mistral of 
Marseilles, which is said to blow something like four- 
teen days out of every week. Its favorite place of 
bustle around Lake Leman is the city of Geneva, 
which, being situated at the bottom of the valley, 
where it narrows very nearly to the breadth of the 
Ehone, is about as much exposed to gusts as if it were 
in the nozzle of a bellows. A torrent of dust often 
crowds its narrow streets, scouring in at the northern 
side of the city and out at the southern, like a current 
of mad emigration, tending toward some humid bourne 
in Mediterranean billows. I never in my life wore my 
hat tighter on my head, nor got more gravel and dust 
in my eyes, than during my visits to Geneva. 

Notwithstanding atmospheric observations and lin- 
guistic studies, I sometimes felt dreadfully lonely and 
unemployed in my hydropathic seclusion. Even Tro- 
con was at one time absent for more than a week. 
The reader can imagine how hard pushed I was for 
amusement when I tell him that I once passed five 
minutes very agreeably in making faces at a strange 
cat, who had perched himself on the outer window-sill 
to observe the solitude of the saloon. The animal 
stared in undisguised amazement until the spectacle 
apparently became too harrowing for endurance, when 
he disappeared with a scared jump, like a rustic fright- 
ened by a ghost. 

Another means of diversion was Trompette, a good- 
natured, good-for-nothing, loafing specimen of a bushy- 



110 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

tailed small dog. As white as a dirty dog could be, 
shaggy and uncombed, with short legs, a tongue that 
was too long for him, a very neatly turned peroration, 
and lively red eyes, he looked like a quadruped of char- 
acter. A sharp dog he was for cutting summersets; 
skillful at playing toss up and catch with lumps of sug- 
ar ; remarkable also for whining lamentably in tune to 
the church bells. It was his misfortune to have fleas, 
but not his fault, I am sure, for he took the most vigor- 
ous measures to get rid of them. He would bite mad- 
ly at his populous back, then roll himself desperately in 
the gravel, then take to his heels with such swiftness as 
to leave his tail behind him (an inch or so), then halt to 
nibble again as if he meant to eat himself up entirely. 
On account of this misfortune, Trompette was not a 
welcome guest in the house, and seldom dared enliven 
it with his flea-bitten presence, so that whenever he 
was admitted he took it as a rare favor, turning sum- 
mersets of gratitude, and wagging his tail as indefati- 
gably as a pendulum. If allowed to remain to dinner, 
he took post by the chair of the most charitable person 
in the company, but held himself prepared to follow 
up any other chance prospect of an immediate morsel. 
His head awry, and one eye cocked at you like a 
chicken, he watched every bit in its transit from the 
plate to your mouth with an anxiety which he made 
no attempt to conceal ; and when it finally disappear- 
ed in that orifice where bits (whether horses' or other 
bits) usually go, he licked his chops involuntarily, as 
if from instinctive sympathy (somewhat envious) with 
your happiness. He evidently had not strength of 
mind to tear himself from this unprofitable spectacle, 



WINTER IN DIVONNE. Ill 

the most aggravating species of misery, perhaps, of 
which a doggish nature is capable. 

During the month of warm weather which I saw at 
Divonne, Trompette enjoyed himself beyond descrip- 
tion in the sunshine. Couching in the sultriest noon- 
tide, he sunk into a luxurious dream-life, sometimes 
waking up with a start at the sensation of a fly on 
his nose or a flea in his ear, exerting his lazy facul- 
ties for a moment to bite or shake off the enemy of 
his peace, then spreading himself again to the sun, so 
sweltering, so toasted that he was all but ready to pop, 
like a chestnut in the ashes. And all this while there 
was a remarkably shrewd, self-satisfied air about him, 
as though he would have said, " If I ain't a watch-dog, 
I know the time of day ; if I ain't a pointer, I am a 
keen dog at all points ; my nose is rather to the point, 
I fancy, and so are my ears ; there is health in my 
bark, and waggishness in my tail." 

Our establishment also boasted a pet lamb, who van- 
ished mysteriously about the beginning of winter, and 
whom I supposed to have been killed and eaten, as 
usually happens at last to the respectable part of the 
woolly population. But on one of the early warm days 
of spring he reappeared, now grown up to sheephood ; 
and, emerging from the stable, where he had passed the 
cold weather among the cows and horses, proceeded to 
divert himself by stepping on the flower-beds, munch- 
ing the oleanders and rose-bushes, butting at Trom- 
pette and the hens, until, having done mischief enough 
in an hour to satisfy a reasonable sheep for a week, he 
was finally chased back to his stall by the outraged 
gardener. Two or three repetitions of this foray gen- 



112 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

erally exhausted the patience of the doctor, who would 
then cause Bunty to be tied up again in the stable, 
and thus force him to let the hens and oleanders alone 
for a season. 

I must bequeath a page or so to the memory of my 
particular friend and boon companion in the revels of 
hydropathy, Monsieur Trocon. He was a middle- 
sized Frenchman of thirty-three or thereabouts, with 
heavy shoulders, a broad chest, and immense muscles ; 
in short, a perfect model of those fine fellows whom 
one sees about France in the red trowsers of the Zou- 
aves or the blue tunics of the Chasseurs ; just the kind 
of man to leap up the fire-swept precipices of the 
Alma, or to struggle with a heroic vitality through the 
fatigues and privations of a Crimean winter. He had 
served a while in the artillery, where his reckless tem- 
per and wild love of pleasure had several times brought 
him into difficulties, and at last forced him to buy him- 
self out in order to escape the severity of his officers. 
He considered it curious, and, in fact, rather humorous, 
that the man who replaced him was finished, a short 
time after, by the well-aimed bullet of an Arab in Al- 
geria. 

Having rid himself of cannon and sabre exercise, he 
turned his attention to getting a living, and when I 
knew him was a very respectable and well-to-do car- 
riage-maker. It was actually a disappointment in 
love which shook his colossal constitution, and sent 
him for health to the restorative humidities of Di- 
vonne. Once there, he became fascinated by the cure, 
and precipitated himself into a dissipation of packings 
and sitz-baths. At one time the doctor sent him 



WINTER IN DIVONNE. 113 

away, telling him that he was well ; but in a week he 
was back again, declaring that his life hung by a 
thread. The thread in question would probably have 
served a Brobdignag tailor, for at this very time he was 
a kind of enormity of muscular force. In fact, he had 
got hypped, and imagined himself sick, in consequence 
of having been too well all the early part of his life. 
Many a man who has lived thirty years in perfect 
health believes himself going into a decline on the first 
attack of stomach-ache. 

Whether a Frenchman has more vanity than an 
American or an Englishman, I do not know ; but, at 
all events, he takes the liberty to show more of it in 
his conversation. He is apt to talk copiously about 
himself, analyze at large his own peculiarities of char- 
acter, and conclude himself, on the whole, to be a good 
fellow. I have heard French-women describe most 
minutely, particularize even to hair-splitting, their 
sentiments toward men whom they had loved, or sup- 
posed they had loved. On the other hand, I may no- 
tice that the French are very charitable to this sociable 
egotism in other people, and listen to a fellow-mortal's 
expatiations on himself without impatience, without 
reproaching him, even behind his back, for self-con- 
ceit. What seems to us vanity may be in part only 
a greater degree of frankness and communicativeness. 

Trocon had this characteristic of discussing himself 
as minutely as if he was a delicate plat, or a ques- 
tion before the Assemblee Rationale. If any one re- 
monstrated with him on some unreasonable habit or 
prejudice, he would give, as an all-sufficient explana- 
tion, " That's my way" (Je suis comme pa). This ro- 



114 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

bust and self-reliant reason was good for every thing, 
from his peculiarity of hating priests and aristocrats 
worse than he hated the devil, down to his other pe- 
culiarity of eating boiled eggs for breakfast in contra- 
diction of all rules of hydropathic diet. In exact 
truth, his was an instinctive nature, abominating things 
because they were uncongenial, and loving them be- 
cause they were sympathetic. A downright French 
character it was — very much resembling the Irish ; 
more moved by emotion than by reason ; vigorous 
rather than persevering. In politics and religion his 
sentiments were on the right side ; Nature had made 
him a hater of despotism, whether monarchic or priest- 
ly. But, with this passionate energy as a motor of ac- 
tion, he would, I think, have been a reckless man in 
success, a famous fellow for heads and confiscations. 
If not an absolute "Bed'," he was something more 
than light pink or rose color. I have seen him shake 
his iron fist and howl like a wild beast as the flushed, 
haughty face, and tranquil, assured step of the Bishop 
of Freiburg passed our door. The coup d'etat fell 
upon him like a personal misfortune; it broke his 
sleep, made him melancholy and almost sick. 

His revolutionary tastes showed themselves early, 
or rather, perhaps, were formed by an incident which 
occurred in his boyhood. At fourteen he was an ap- 
prentice in a workshop at Paris, when, some umbrage 
having been excited by the new government of Louis 
Philippe, the blouses resorted to their favorite political 
measure of barricades and arms. Little Trocon pick- 
ed up a musket and cartridge-box in the street, and, 
concluding that it was a free fight, counted himself in 



WINTER IN DIVONNE. 115 

without ceremony. " I found myself with some other 
workmen from the shop," said he, " and we fired upon 
all the soldiers we could see. Sometimes we ran 
away from the dragoons, and sometimes I thought I 
had lived my last day. Then we would take a new 
post around some corner, and shoot at them down the 
street. I can not say if I hit any body or not, for 
there was such a dust and hurry that I hardly saw any 
thing. And during all that time there I never knew 
what I was fighting for. If any one had said to me, 
Trocon, what wantest thou ? I would not have known 
what to reply. But how we fought those "beggars of 
soldiers ! My God ! I laugh when I think of it." 

That scene occurred over twenty years ago, but the 
outlines and coloring for such another exist to-day. If 
a revolution should happen to-morrow in Paris, hund- 
reds of little Trocons, just as indifferent to motives, just 
as heedless of results, would man the barricades, and 
fight like heroes and ignoramuses. The plebeians of 
Rome, the blouses of Paris, the b'hoy s of New York, the 
filibusters of New Orleans, are the same race, and, mor- 
ally speaking, live in the same country, the same epoch. 

Trocon had fought a duel, too, which he described 
somewhat in the following style: "I was living in 
Paris then ; I was a man grown, and knew life a lit- 
tle. There arrived there a young fellow from my 
place, who looked me up. As he was the son of an 
old friend of our family, I made him see the city, and 
did my best to divert him. One evening we took 
chairs outside of the Cafe Tortoni, and demanded 
something — I have forgotten what now — but coffee 
and brandy perhaps. Close by us were a couple of 



116 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

officers — lieutenants — fellows just risen from trk, 
ranks, I suppose — real bears. One of them wanted a 
light for his cigar, and, instead of asking it of the waitei, 
he turned upon my friend and lighted from him — with- 
out asking permission, mark you, or even touching his 
hat. My young fellow got all red; but, being no 
more than a boy, and not knowing life, he said noth- 
ing. I took the matter up there. ' Monsieur,' said I, 
' that is not the manner of a gentleman who lights his 
cigar.' He regarded me very impertinently, and said, 
1 It seems to me that that concerns your comrade, and 
not you.' I replied, ' Monsieur, I make it concern me ; 
my friend, being a stranger here, is under my protec- 
tion, and I demand that you make your apology to 
him.' Eh ! well ; one word led to another, and, in fine, 
it was decided that we should finish it with the pistol. 
The morning after, we encountered each other early in 
the Wood of Boulogne. It fell to him by lot to fire the 
first. He raised his pistol, pulled, and never hit me. 
Then I pulled, and, my God ! I never hit him neither. 
Eh ! well ; that ended the affair, and I have never seen 
the beggar since." 

At Divonne, Trocon came very near being involved 
in a duel with one of the officers of the little garrison. 
After the coup cfretat he cut the acquaintance of the 
priest of the village, that being the only sacrifice of re- 
venge which he could accord to his outraged country. 
Happening to meet the reverend gentleman promenad- 
ing with a lieutenant who was a mutual friend, he 
passed them both without a recognition, unwilling to 
let the priest suppose that even half of a bow was 
meant for him. The lieutenant was incensed, demand- 



WINTER IN DIYONNE. 117 

yd explanations, received the above reason, declared it 
unsatisfactory, insisted upon apologies to himself and 
pfe reverend friend. His brother officers, including 
the captain, were called in, and, rather curiously, de- 
cided against him. He ungraciously accepted the as- 
, sertions of Trocon that no personal offense was in- 
tended, and lived on very ceremoniously bearish terms 
with him thereafter. 

Another acquaintance, of the same political creed as 
Trocon, but very different from him in character, was a 
Frenchman whom I shall call Jolivet, a tall, slender 
man, American rather than French in his build, and 
somewhat American, too, in his slow tones and lounging 
manner. In opinions he was a radical progressive, 
doubting the old creeds of religion, doubting the exist- 
ing forms of society, looking confidently to something 
new, something better — in short, to the onward march 
and ultimate perfection of humanity. As I was ortho- 
dox in religion, and believed society in the present 
shape of the family to be the only society possible, we 
never talked on these subjects without disputing. Like 
infidels in general, he kept his temper admirably, made 
his assertions cautiously, and had rather the air of an in- 
quirer after truth than a preacher of any particular dog- 
ma. I, on the contrary, after the fashion of most people 
who imagine that they have Heaven on their side, was 
apt to be positive in my assertions and very crushing in 
my denunciations. I was startled and shocked at his 
quiet denials of what I had been educated to consider 
sacred truths, and I had not always the self-possession 
to remember that I must prove that these truths were 
sacred before I could demand his respect for them. He, 



118 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

on the other hand, free from any educational belief 
(often more obstinate and violent than a reasoned one), 
and resting in that tranquil nonentity of faith which 
Kousseau calls a state of respectful doubt, had no 
prejudices to wound, no fixed positions to defend, and 
so kept his temper unmoved in the controversy. As 
he never at first stated his opinions broadly, but al- 
lowed me gradually to draw them out of him, I was 
some time in discovering his exact credence. " Why, 
then," I said to him at last, "you are no more nor 
less than an atheist." 

" Excuse me : not at all. I believe in God." 

"But you are, at least, infidel to the Christian re- 
ligion." 

"Let me explain. I believe somewhat in the di- 
vine nature of Jesus, as I believe that all noble and 
superior souls partake largely of the divine intellect 
and goodness. If you speak of the Christian religion 
as it is commonly stated, I acknowledge that I am in- 
credulous of that. The fall and the redemption — I 
deny them, I admit it." 

It was the second time in my life that I had heard 
so frank a declaration of infidelity, and I stared in 
some naive astonishment at its hardihood. As the 
discussion w T ent on, I fell back upon that proof of 
Christianity which exists in the interior spiritual life 
of the devout. And here I showed my ignorance of 
human nature and of the intimate history of religions 
in general by asserting that this inward piety, these 
seemingly supernatural emotions, are confined entirely 
to Christians, and almost altogether to Protestants. 

"Allow me to doubt that," said he, with his usual 



WINTER IN DIYONNE. 119 

cold tone and courteous manner. "I am inclined to 
think that the Moslems and Brahmins experience those 
phenomena, and I know that they exist abundantly 
among Catholics. Only our revelations take a char- 
acter from our education just as yours from your edu- 
cation ; and as you have sublime emotions concerning 
Christ and the fathers, so do ours seem to descend 
from the Virgin and the saints. I can tell you some- 
thing of that from my own experience. I was educa- 
ted for a priest. A mere boy of sixteen, I was sur- 
rounded by holy fathers, and believed fervently all that 
they taught me. I used to pray constantly, and fast 
often, to gain these spiritual enlightenments ; and I 
fancied that I received them. I sometimes had rap- 
tures — ecstasies of devotional feeling; and once or 
twice came visions of the Virgin, urging me to strug- 
gle toward heaven. But all this passed away as cir- 
cumstances changed and the priestly influences around 
me declined. I am convinced that these spiritual im- 
pressions are nothing but the effects of education act- 
ing on a fervent and impressible imagination. You 
see that I have had this interior life that you adduce 
as a proof of Christianity, and without result on my 
belief. Your appeal fails, therefore ; we must return 
to our reasoning." 

Such was a specimen of Jolivet's conversation on 
points of religious credence. With regard to theories 
on society, he had reached exactly the same limit — a 
negation of the justice of what existed, but no positive 
idea of what will be or should be. He often read so- 
cialistic books, but I could not find that he put faith 
in any one of them. He attached little importance 



120 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

to Fourier's system of phalansteries, and had no sim- 
ilar plan of his own to propose. But he had a firm 
assurance that something would yet be found gentler 
than the family, stronger than the police, broader than 
Eepublicanism, which would give quiet to humanity, 
and well-being to every one of its members. I main- 
tained that, as far as possible, the individual should 
be left free, unassisted by law, as well as untrammeled 
by it. I adduced America as the country where this 
idea was carried fullest into action, and challenged 
him to produce a land in which society is more stable 
or prosperity more equally divided. 

" I have no immense admiration for your state of 
things in America," he replied. " It is superficial and 
temporary. It derives from this, that you have ten 
times more land than you want, and therefore easily 
raise food enough for every one. You would be im- 
beciles, and less than men, if you failed to do so. But 
build cities of a million inhabitants, crowd your coun- 
try with four hundred souls to the square mile, and 
you will have as much wretchedness as England or 
France. We want something better than this — some- 
thing more humane than mere individualism — some- 
thing more powerful than mere democracy. I consid- 
er America behind France in a true view of the social 
question. You are satisfied with your present sys- 
tem, although it simply works well from temporary 
circumstances which are fast passing away. You will 
not reach our discoveries until your masses are as pov- 
erty-stricken as ours. We have long ago lived clear 
through your social existence, and are commencing, I 
hope, a new era. We have finished with your brute. 



WINTER IN DIVONNE. 121 

well-being, your happiness of bread and meat, and 
have begun to think out a reform which shall suit hu- 
manity in all its stages of progress and perfection. A 
hundred years hence America will be forced to tread 
in our footsteps. By then we may have placed things 
on some true basis. God knows. It is a hard thing 
to overturn prejudices of six thousand years' stand- 
ing." 

France is full of men wandering blindly and anx- 
iously up and down the steps of socialistic platforms. 
Even the brother of our doctor, although in general 
nothing worse than a good Republican, threw out at 
least one idea tinged with Fourierism. "Property," 
says Proudhon, "is robbery." My friend only went 
so far as to say, " Eetaii is robbery." The merchant, 
he averred, buys at one rate, and sells to the consumer 
at an advanced rate ; therefore he picks the consum- 
er's pocket of all the difference between the two rates, 
which is clearly robbery ; and as the mass of consum- 
ers are poor men, this robbery is doubly unprincipled, 
because cruel. It was of no use to reply that, if it 
were not for the merchant, the poor man would have 
to go to China for his tea and to Cuba for his sugar, 
which in the end would be more expensive than even 
a large commission to the retailer. " The govern- 
ment," he said, "might see to that. There ought to 
be vast magazines where merchandise should be re- 
tailed at wholesale prices." 

Strange to say, Trocon took my view of the sub- 
ject ; and, stranger still, a French Legitimist noble 
sided with my antagonist. We had a long dispute, 
in which we talked vociferously, and, after the man- 
F 



122 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ner of Frenchmen, all together, nobody taking the 
trouble to listen to the opposite party. As usual in 
discussions, not a soul was convinced ; and we ended, 
like dancers in a quadrille, with each one occupying 
his first position. 



SPEING IN DIVONNE. 123 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SPEING IN DIVONNE. 

As spring returned, the giant landscape around us 
freshened into verdure, while the atrocious bise dimin- 
ished its chilliness and frequency, until Divonne became 
a pleasanter place than I had yet imagined it. New 
company also began to arrive, cheering me even more 
than the young flowers, the gushings of bird-music, 
and the lengthened days of summer sky. 

The harbinger of this featherless flock of spring 

water-fowl was the Count de G , a Frenchman of 

about twenty-eight, whom I soon discovered to be one 
of the most fanatical hydropaths that ever performed 
the douche-dance. It was perfectly in the character 
of the man, an enthusiast in every thing, a zealous 
Papist, a passionate anti-Republican, a loyal subject of 
Henri Cinq, a scorner of every political thing in France 
which was not old regime Legitimist. Yet, aristocrat 
in feeling and in blood as he was, he fell readily into 
our burgess society, not even holding himself aloof 
from radical, coach-building Monsieur Trocon. He 
was too sociable to be distant, too well-bred to assume 
superiority; and then there was a bond between us 
which in his eyes was almost equal to nobility : that 
bond was the brotherhood of hydropathy, for which 
his respect was indescribable. He had been at Graef- 
enberg, and, when he mentioned the circumstance, I 



124 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

remembered having seen him figure in the balls there, 
although I then supposed, from his fair complexion and 
tall form, that he was an Englishman or an American. 
In his company I. enjoyed the excitement of being 
arrested three times by the patrolling gendarmes who 
protected our frontier of France from the machinations 
of Republicans and sinners. It is my belief that these 
inquests were chiefly provoked by the uncivilized cos- 
tume in which the count chose to pursue his watery la- 
bors. Without hat, without cravat, tramping through 
the mud and rain of early spring in a suit of brown 
linen, he certainly looked like a "vagrom man fit to 
be comprehended." In consequence of his promptings, 
as well as of my own Graefenberg education, I also fell 
into the scarecrow mode of dressing, and so shared his 
annoyances. Walking one day bareheaded through a 
drizzling rain, we were met about half a mile from the 
Swiss frontier by a tall, powerful trooper, a splendid 
specimen of the French sabreur, wearing the uniform 
of the mounted gendarmerie. He fixed the broad glare 
of his full hazel eye upon us, turning his head after us 
as we passed, and finally, checking his horse, called out, 
"Gentlemen, wait one instant." 

We stopped and faced him. "Where are you go- 
ing?" he continued. 

"We are taking a walk," replied the count, rather 
contemptuously, as he resumed his march toward the 
land of freedom. 

" Stop where you are!" shouted the trooper, spur- 
ring his horse past us, and placing himself across our 
route. " Now tell me where you are going and whence 
you come." 



SPEING IN DIVONNE. 125 

" We come from the village back here, and we are 
walking for exercise." 

" You have not the air of belonging in such a village 
as this, and you are not dressed like people who are 
simply taking a walk. Gentlemen, you will please 
follow me before the mayor of Divonne. I wish to 
hear what he says of you." 

" This is nonsense and insolence," said the count, 
getting angry ; " I do not choose to be interrupted in 
my amusements in this style, and you have no right 
to do it, no authority to make an arrest." 

"Monsieur, this department is under martial law. 
I am a sergeant of the military police, and my orders 
are to arrest every person who has the air of a sus- 
picious character. You will have the goodness to 
walk before me to the village." 

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said the count, 
making a resolute push to get by our officious friend. 
The sergeant gave his bridle a dexterous turn, and, 
hitting my comrade with the horse's flank, nearly flung 
him into a ditch which bordered the road. Obstinacy 
was clearly useless ; the trooper was determined to 
know us better, and two old umbrellas were no match 
for pistols and a long sabre; besides which, it was sup- 
per-time, or very nearly. Wheeling about, we meekly 
retraced our steps toward Divonne, keeping pace with 
the fast-walking, powerful steed of our guardian. The 
count was overboiling with scornful rage, which he 
expressed in a series of bantering remarks, addressed 
to me, but meant to excoriate the sensibilities of the 
trooper. Johnny Darme got mad at the sarcasms, 
and was puzzled by the indifference we exhibited to 



126 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

our fate ; he tried to respond cuttingly, but by the 
time we had reached the outskirts of the village he 
was anxious to get rid of us. Meeting a squad of 
youngsters who were chasing each other in their 
clumsy sabots through the outskirting puddles of Di- 
vonne, he pulled up and inquired, with a despairing 
effort at dignity, "My children, do you know these 
gentlemen ?" 

"Oh yes, we see them every day," responded the 
little fellows, with a stare of unlimited astonish- 
ment. 

"It is well," declared the trooper; "that suffices 
me. Gentlemen, I bid you good-day." 

"Good-day," said the count, with a smile of indig- 
nation ; "Good-day," said I, with the sarcastic civility 
of a man who wishes somebody better luck another 
time; and the mortified sergeant, driving spurs into 
his beast, plunged forward through the sloughy streets 
to a station of gendarmerie in the centre of the village. 
As it was now too late to continue our walk, we marched 
straight to the Establishment, where the history of our 
adventure was received with roars of laughter. 

"I must have a reform in the costume of my pa- 
tients," said the doctor. "Why, the devil! it is 
scandalous to have them trooping about in such style 
as to be taken up for Socialists and vagrant Republi- 
cans." 

"Excellent!" said his father-in-law, a jolly, red- 
faced Genevese. "I can not, for my part, imagine 
why he let you go at all. The trooper found that you 
were not running away. Well, what of that? It 
was clearly his duty to take you to some Bedlam or 



SP1UNG IN DIVONNE. 127 

other, and have you put out of the way of doing harm 
to sane people." 

A few days after this, as we were wandering near 
the chateau of Baron de Pres, we were arrested by a 
gendarme on foot. He, too, wanted to know our 
names and conditions, where we were going, and what 
was our business in the country ; and he was partic- 
ularly incredulous of our being in a hydropathic estab- 
lishment at that ungenial season of the year. The 
count's genteel address and elegant accent bore passa- 
ble witness to his respectability. The gendarme turn- 
ed to me. "You are an Italian," he said, in a posi- 
tive way. 

"No ; excuse me, I am not in the least Italian." 

"But you have a certain Italian accent, I am pret- 
ty sure." 

" Very possibly. I learned Italian before French, 
and my first lessons in French were from an Italian 
master." 

" Of what nation are you, then?" 

"An American, at your service." 

" What is an American doing here ? Taking the 
cure also ? Do you come all the way from America 
to practice hydropathy in Divonne ?" 

"Not precisely ; but, being here, I seized the oppor- 
tunity." 

"I know something of Doctor Vidart. Tell me a 
little about his house and family. I shall know wheth- 
er you are describing with exactness." 

I accordingly portrayed our doctor's respectable 
physique, followed up with an account of his wife and 
brother, and closed with a particular narration of the 



128 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

names, ages, and appearance of his children. " Very 
well," said the gendarme, with a grin; and, dropping 
his steady eye, which he had fixed hitherto on mine, 
he left us with a salute. 

A week or two later, the count, Trocon, and I bor- 
rowed the doctor's carriage, and drove over to the lit- 
tle city of Gex. Lounging about its irregular streets, 
we came upon a station of gendarmerie, and were im- 
mediately arrested in a body by those entertaining peo- 
ple. They were uncommonly polite this time, and 
only insisted on having our names and conditions, by 
way of souvenir, in their little album. The count and 
Trocon were easily written down, but my position was 
rather more difficult to define. The stumpy, red-faced 
old sergeant had no suspicion that I was a foreigner, 
and my French name was not calculated to undeceive 
him. "Your place of residence ?" said he. 

" Connecticut." 

"What?" he asked, bringing his chirography to a 
full stop, and looking me full in the face. 

" Con-nect-i-cut." 

" In what department?" said he, with an air of sus- 
picion. 

" The gentleman is an American," observed the 
count, " and Connecticut is a province of the United 
States." 

" Ah ! really !" said the old fellow, and asked for my 
passport immediately. Then, after two or three in- 
effectual attempts to repeat the name of my native 
state, he wrote it out, I have no idea with what ortho- 
graphical success, and told us that we might go. 

Among the earliest arrivals of spring were two Rus- 



SPRING IN DIVONNE. 129 

sian princes, brothers, Eugene and Georges L , not 

Germans by race, like the ManteufFels, but unmixed 
and indigenous Muscovites. Eugene, the eldest, was 
a man of about thirty-seven, small and dark, with gen- 
tle manners and a thoughtful expression, which changed 
when he spoke into a lively good-humor. Georges, 
seven or eight years younger, was very different : fair 
complexioned, with stern blue eyes, irregular Northern 
features, lofty stature, and a military air verging on 
haughtiness. His wife, a tall and proud blonde, was 
excessively vain of him, and assured me that I might 
consider him the model of a handsome Russian. The 
wife of the elder brother, also fair and blue-eyed, but 
small, resembled her husband in the quiet amiability 
of her expression and manners. 

These people entered easily into our little circle, and 
soon presented, at least to me, one of the most inter- 
esting features in its cosmopolitan variety. Even 
Eugene's little boy, a child of three years old or there- 
abouts, was a character worth observing, inasmuch as 
he understood three languages — English, French, and 
Russian — but obstinately refused to utter a word of 
any one of them. I suspect that he was dumbfound- 
ed by the large choice of expressions offered him, and 
preferred waiting till he had discovered which lingo 
best suited his infantile necessities. The parents were 
naturally afraid that he might be dumb, and consulted 
the doctor anxiously concerning the little fellow's taci- 
turnity. " Give yourself no alarm," said an old Gen- 
evese, who had come to Divonne to be cured of sleep- 
lessness. " He will talk some day when nobody ex- 
pects it, and speak all three of his languages together. 
F 2 



130 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

I had a friend in Berne who had just such a little boy. 
This poor little devil had an English mother, a French 
nurse, and heard German all around him. He thought 
he was in the Tower of Babel, I suppose, for he never 
said a word till he was four years old. His father 
feared that he was dumb, and got all the doctors in 
Berne to give their opinions on him. The doctors 
physicked him, and nearly pulled his tongue out to see 
why it never talked ; but he made no greater progress 
for all that. Well, one day, when they had nearly 
given up all hope of his ever speaking, he came out 
on a sudden with a whole sentence in English. 
From that day he talked all his languages, and talked 
them fluently, just like any other child of four years 
old. And so it will be with this little chap — never 
fear." 

Strange as it may seem for a Eepublican to say so, 
I soon found that I had more national sympathies 
with these Russians than with any other people that 
I had met in Europe. As we Americans complain of 
being traduced and unmeritedly ridiculed by foreign 
travelers, so had the indignation of these Muscovites 
been aroused by a series of French Trollopes and Ger- 
man Basil Halls. The Germans indeed, they said, 
were usually careful observers and conscientious nar- 
rators, but the Frenchmen were, almost without ex- 
ception, superficial, flippant, impertinent, and false. 
They remarked with some bitterness on the insolent 
civilization of Western Europe, which would acknowl- 
edge no merit, no greatness out of its own geograph- 
ical boundaries. Like us, too, they relied on the fu- 
ture for making their character known and their claims 



SPEING IN DIVONNE. 131 

to respectability acknowledged. "You and we," said 
they, "have the time to come ; we can afford to bear 
with these people for a season." 

Another subject, not so bright in its future aspects, 
on which we could talk in sympathy, was slavery. 
As their father owned nineteen hundred serfs, I was 
rather surprised to find them theoretically abolition- 
ists. But, like the mass of our Northern people, they 
looked upon emancipation rather as a desideratum 
than a near expectancy. " Our Nicholas," said Prince 
Georges, "has declared that he will abolish serfage, 
but he never will do it, for he never will dare. The 
question is too tremendous to be solved suddenly, even 
by despotic power. The wrong will, I am afraid, live 
on until it is righted by revolution and carnage. My 
God ! if we had only four millions of serfs, like you, 
we would soon put an end to the system. But just 
imagine the awful number of fifty millions !" 

"Are there any socialistic ideas among the serfs?" 
I asked — " any thoughts of striking for their liberty?" 

"None whatever. They are too ignorant to devise 
such an abstract idea as the equal rights of man. 
They are perfectly contented, perfectly tranquil." 

" Oh, they love their masters," struck in his wife. 

"Love them!" said the prince, laughing. "Ah! 
that is a good joke. I confess, however, that they do 
not hate them." 

"But they do love them sometimes, Georges," per- 
sisted the pretty woman. "There is my maid; she 
shows that she loves me ; and then she tells me that 
she does." 

"My dear wife," said the prince, "she would not 



132 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

dare to tell you the contrary. You would not give 
her any more old dresses. 

"No," he continued, turning to me, " I do not ap- 
prehend an insurrection from any discontent that now 
exists among our serfs, but I do when I look at the sub- 
ject as a prophet, from the stand-point of history and 
of abstract right. It is not natural that a man should 
always suffer himself to be bought and sold by another 
man. If one generation does not discover that there 
is an injustice in this, its sons or its grandsons will. 

" But we have one advantage over you Americans. 
Our slavery is vaster than yours, but not so brutal. 
We do not separate families. We do not put a serf 
up at auction, like a horse. We never tear one of our 
peasants from his native village near Moscow to sell 
him to some farmer in Kamtschatka. Why do you 
not begin your work, your inevitable duty, by prohib- 
iting the internal slave-trade ?" 

" We can not," I confessed. " The owners will not 
permit it." 

" Ah ! so even your confident republic has its im- 
possibilities." 

One thing particularly surprised me in the conver- 
sation of these men, and that was a tendency toward 
Republican sentiments. They would have laughed at 
the idea of introducing Republicanism into Russia 
now ; but I am sure that they regarded democracy as 
the end and right of a highly enlightened people. I 
suspected them even of being dissatisfied with the 
present unlimited nature of*the imperial authority, al- 
though it may be that I misunderstood their very cau- 
tious expressions of opinion on this subject. In order 



SPRINO IN DIYONNE. 133 

to comprehend such a feeling in a Russian noble, it 
must be noted that the power and dignity of his class 
have diminished just in proportion to the increased 
prerogative of the czarship. It is in the position of 
the English aristocracy before Magna Charta: its great- 
est antagonist is not the people, but the monarch. The 
emperor holds it all the more easily in submission be- 
cause primogeniture is not allowed in Russia, so that 
the noble families can rarely increase, or even hold for 
a long time, their wealth and territory. All the sons, 
be they a dozen, inherit the title and their portion of 
the property of the father ; and thus Russia is full of 
poor aristocrats, most of whom are dependent upon the 
civil and military offices for support, and are, conse- 
quently, humble servants of his place-dispensing maj- 
esty. Then there are the new nobles, mostly rich 
tradesmen and bankers, who have been elevated by the 
imperial hand, and are, of course, ready to lick it at 
the first signal. But the order feels its own degrada- 
tion, and nourishes within its breast the only enemies 
whom the Czar has to fear. 

Prince Georges talked, in a laughing way, about his 
ultra-Republican sentiments of boyish days. " I was 
in a military school ; and we children all read Plu- 
tarch, and raved about Timoleon and the two Brutuses. 
Sometimes we made resolutions that, when the em- 
peror next came to visit us, we would treat him with 
the coolness that such a Tarquin, such a Dionysius 
deserved. Well, the day came, and the emperor ap- 
peared — a tall, magnificent man ; how we admired 
him, notwithstanding our Radicalism ! Still, for a mo- 
ment, there would be a silence. But when the em- 



134 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

peror put his hands on one boy's head, and caught up 
another and kissed him, there was no resisting it. We 
all burst into a hurrah, and tumbled over each other 
to get near him, and share in his fondlings and bene- 
dictions." 



STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 135 



CHAPTER XIV. 

STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 

Prince Georges sometimes amused us with stories 
of his travels, for his nomadic performances by far out- 
passed those of any other member of our circle. For 
instance, he had accomplished the gigantic journey 
from Moscow to Kamtschatka and back by land ; vis- 
iting the Polar Asiatic Sea, living under tents of seal- 
skin on the snow, and sledging for hundreds of miles 
after harnessed dogs. The doctor and his brother nar- 
rated their semi-martial experiences in Algeria, while I 
occasionally told the wonders of Syria, Greece, Con- 
stantinople, and Connecticut. 

One evening a series of ghost-stories arose from their 
graves in our memories, and walked slowly down a 
long, awful passage of the conversation. " It was in 
Berlin that I became witness of some mysterious cir- 
cumstances," said Prince Eugene. "I arrived there 
with only one servant, expecting to be followed in a 
few days by my family. My first business was to se- 
cure a spacious suite of rooms, consisting, in fact, of 
the two upper stories of a large building. The attic, 
however, was not only vacant, but unfurnished ; and I 
took it simply to keep other people out, as the floor 
below was quite enough for my purpose. I moved in 
immediately, and passed a few days there without oth- 
er society than that of my servant. Nothing unusual 



136 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

occurred until evening, when the flow of people and 
vehicles died away, and the street in front of the house 
became quiet. Then I was surprised by hearing 
strange noises in the building, various in sound, though 
generally resembling muffled peals of laughter; but 
what struck me as most singular about them was that 
they seemed to come from the upper story, which I 
knew to be a desert unfurnished with inhabitants. 
After listening half an hour, trying to persuade myself 
that my ears deceived me, I sent my valet up stairs to 
search out the cause of this curious uproar. He went, 
and returned saying that the attic was not only per- 
fectly vacant, but perfectly silent. The disturbance, 
however, still continued, becoming, as evening ad- 
vanced, louder, clearer, and more continuous. Long 
peals of laughter, indistinct words, a strange rolling 
noise, sometimes a sharp clash, and then new bursts of 
laughter, succeeded each other, until, between perplex- 
ed curiosity and nervousness, I got out of all patience. 
I accused my valet of having been afraid to examine 
the floor thoroughly, and declared that he must have 
left some windows open, through which people entered 
from the adjoining houses. Taking a light, I went 
up myself; but when I reached the attic the noises 
had ceased. There was not a person, not a mouse 
even, not a window ajar, not a trap-door loose, noth- 
ing but dusty floors and utter silence. I came down 
very much perplexed, and almost got into a rage at 
hearing the clamor recommence the moment I reached 
the rooms below. I repeated the examination imme- 
diately, and several times afterward during the even- 
ing, now stealing up softly in the dark, now rushing 



STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 137 

up with my candle, always thinking that I should 
catch somebody who had made an almost impossible 
escape before. But I constantly had the same ill luck, 
and finally went to bed, tired out with these chases 
after sounds without bodies. I noticed as a very sin- 
gular circumstance that the noises diminished toward 
eleven o'clock, and by midnight had ceased entirely. 

" The next evening repeated the comedy, with the 
same incomprehensible rolling, crashing, and laughter ; 
the same series of garret inquisitions, and the same 
absurd disappointments. On the third day I sent 
for the owner of the house, for the affair was getting 
to be a serious annoyance. He looked incredulity 
when I told my tale ; but I requested him to come 
and hear for himself that evening. At eight o'clock 
he was in my parlor, listening with as much perplexi- 
ty as I to the rising flow of mysterious noises. He 
searched every room and closet, made various rapid 
forays up stairs, in hopes of surprising some dexteiv 
ous joker, but descended each time with a face of in^ 
creased stupefaction. i It is perfectly unaccountable,' 
said he ; 'I have never believed in haunted houses, 
but this seems very much like one. If you wish it, 1 
am ready to take back the rooms and release you 
from your bargain.' 

"I was puzzled what to do, for I felt ashamed to 
quit the house on the ground of ghosts, and yet these 
disturbances deprived me of all quiet in it. Suddenly 
my landlord rose and went to a door, which opened 
upon a narrow stairway leading to the story below. 
The passage was no longer used, and the door fasten- 
ed, but he contrived to open it, In a moment the 



138 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

mystery was explained : the noises rushed up the 
stairway in a volume. There was a beer-room and a 
billiard-table below ; it was the billiard-balls which I 
had heard crash and roll ; it was the players and beer- 
drinkers whom I had heard talk and laugh. But, in 
consequence of some remarkable acoustic peculiarity 
in the building, all these sounds, the moment that the 
door was shut, seemed to come from above. If that 
stairway had not been thought of, I should have been 
perplexed all my life by a spectral mystery, while the 
house would probably have acquired a bad name, or 
even been deserted as a haunted edifice." 

"Exactly," said the doctor; "it is very probable. 
Well, I know a story to the same effect, although not 
so good a one by a degree. The incidents occurred 
to my father, who, as I have told you, was a surgeon 
in Napoleon's army, and held on firm to him down to 
Waterloo. At the second restoration he lost his com- 
mission, retired into the country, and set up for what 
practice he could find. Well, he contrived to get a 
wife, and a house to keep her in, or, rather, part of a 
house, for one half of it was occupied by a good citi- 
zen who held a corporalship in the National Guard. 
The building was divided from front to rear by a long 
passage ; my father occupied the lodgment on one 
side of it, and the corporal occupied on the other. It 
was a rambling, eccentric edifice, with its rooms lying 
about at loose ends, like a crazy man's ideas. The 
servant-girl's room, for example, was at the back end 
of this passage, a long distance from the rest of the 
family, and next door to being out of doors. Now 
Jeannette, being a mere peasant and unable to read, 



STOKY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 139 

believed in ghosts of a necessity, and was a little timid 
about sleeping in such a solitude. But nothing hap- 
pened to her till a certain winter night, when there 
was a trifle of snow on the ground, and the winds were 
blowing like trumpeters. At some late hour she woke 
up in a fright, with the idea that something or some- 
body was scratching at her window. The sound had 
ceased before she quite got her senses, and although 
she stared hard at the glass she could see nothing. 
Presently she heard the scratching again ; there was 
no possible mistake about it this time ; it continued a 
little while, and then stopped — mysteriously. It was 
too modest a noise for a robber, and must necessarily 
be the work of some ghost who was trying to force an 
sntrance. It was awful; it made the goose-flesh 
come; it made her hair stand on tiptoe. Imagine, 
ladies and gentlemen, the horrible circumstances of 
the situation : a small chamber, at the end of a long 
passage, at midnight, with something scratching on the 
window ! Can you wonder that my father's unso- 
phisticated servant-maid drew her head under the bed- 
clothes, and nearly had a nervous crisis ? At last 
came a low, shrill cry, very much, I suppose, like the 
squeak of a ghost trying to crowd himself through a 
crack in a window-pane. Gathering all her strength 
into one sublime effort for safety, Jeannette leaped out 
of bed, burst open the door, ran along the passage, 
and fell with a scream just outside of my father's bed- 
room. My mother started up at the noise, and awoke 
my father. ' What is the matter V he grumbled. 

"'That scream!' said my mother. * Didst thou 
hear it V 



140 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

44 'No; where was it?' 

" ' In the hall. It was perfectly horrible. Is it 
possible that thou didst not hear it ?' 

" 'No,' said my father, again; 'but I will go and 
see if any thing has happened.' 

" He got up, stepped into the passage, and of course 
stumbled, over a half dead chambermaid. Taking her 
into the bed-room, he applied hydropathy, that is to say, 
threw a tumbler of cold water in her face, and brought 
her to her senses. As soon as she could speak she 
told her story, thereby horribly frightening my moth- 
er, who, you must know, had not served under Napo- 
leon. 'Ghost!' said my father; 'go to the devil! 
What are you talking about ? It is a thief, if it is 
any thing.' 

"He took down the old sabre with which he had 
amputated heads under Napoleon, seized a candle, and 
set off for the chamber of mysterious scratchings. My 
mother caught hold of his shirt, declaring that she 
would not stay alone ; and Jeannette, equally gregari- 
ous, staggered after them both, holding fast to my 
mother's nightgown. In the passage they came upon 
the corporal of the National Guard, who had slid out 
of his room in deshabille to discover the cause of the 
screaming. My father explained the affair in a wink ; 
and the corporal, catching down his musket, joined the 
forlorn hope. His wife said that she would not re- 
main there alone, and, grasping his linen, tagged after 
him, so that, in fine, the whole five trooped down the 
cold passage in their shifts. The costume was not 
exactly that of court ; but then time pressed, and the 
occasion was grave. At the door of the terrible cliam- 



STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 141 

ber the women stopped, while the men charged in with 
arms presented. Nothing was to be seen, so they 
halted and listened. Presently every one heard dis- 
tinctly a faint scratching on the window. My father 
raised it cautiously, while the corporal stood ready to 
fire, when in jumped the cat. Yes, ladies and gentle- 
men, the old black cat — ha ! ha ! ha ! The old cat had 
got out in a cold winter night, and very naturally want- 
ed to get in again — ho ! ho ! ho !" 

Another story which I heard at Divonne was not 
only curious and mysterious, but rang eloquently on 
the ear with a jingling of filthy lucre. The count, 
Trocon, and I sat in the billiard-room, talking over 
California!! expeditions and specie-huntings of various 
species. 

" If I wanted money, I would go to California," said 
the count, with a sparkle of golden desire in his eye. 

" Ho I" responded Trocon, with a mysterious chuck- 
le, rising and turning his back to the fire. "There are 
treasures in France, too, which could be had for the 
digging." 

"What do you mean?" asked the count, throwing 
up his head as if scenting a placer. 

"I know what I mean, but it is a secret," replied 
Trocon, digging his hands resolutely into his pockets. 

The count looked perplexed, and so did Trocon; 
the one fidgeted on his chair, and the other on his feet ; 
the one was anxious to know, and the other equally 
anxious to tell. There was a brief silence, at the end 
of which Trocon resumed his seat, leaned forward, and 
said, in a reduced voice, "Will you promise never to 
speak of it without my permission ?" 



142 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

"But yes, but certainly," asseverated the count, lay- 
ing his hands on his knees solemnly, as if he were 
placing them on an altar. 

" But certainly," echoed I. 

"Eh! well," continued Trocon, "you know my city, 
Mantry ? It lies about ten leagues from here, on the 
diligence-route between Geneva and Paris. You trav- 
ersed it, perhaps, in coming to Divonne ?" 

" Without doubt, certainly," said the count. 

" Certainly," repeated I. 

"Eh! well, not quite a league from the city there is 
a great convent, very ancient, on a hill close by a fine 
forest. This convent is' deserted now, because the 
monks were chased out of France in 1793, and the 
government seized the property. The government has 
it still, but the land lies waste, and there is nobody in 
the building except a keeper, who cultivates the old 
garden. Eh! well, about five years ago a poor man in 
our town, who has done a devilish bad business in life, 
showed me a letter written from America by a monk, 
who said he was the last of that brotherhood. The 
letter declared that there was a treasure buried in an 
iron chest in one corner of the inclosure, under the 
foundation of a stairway which has been leveled." 

"What was the treasure?" asked the count, in a 
tone as secret as if he was locked inside of a money- 
safe. 

" All the convent plate, and all the money that the 
brotherhood had when it was dispersed." 

" Why didn't this monk come for the treasure him- 
self?" the count continued, as a slight shade of pain- 
ful doubt crossed his visage 



STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 143 

"Perhaps he was afraid," replied Trocon ; "but he 
said in the letter that he was old — too old to enjoy so 
much money, if he could get it; "but he thought it 
was a pity good silver should he lost, and he want- 
ed his ancient friend to benefit by it. Eh ! well, gen- 
tlemen, I have held this letter in my own hands. 
The man who received it wanted me to help find 
the money, and go shares with him. He thought of 
climbing the wall by night, and digging; but one 
night might not have sufficed for that trick, and then 
he would have paid with his skin if he had been caught 
at it, for, as I tell you, the land is government prop- 

by." 

"How much would the convent cost?" asked the 
count, with speculation in his eyes. " Not more 
than twenty or twenty-five thousand francs, I sup- 
pose." 

" No, not more ; but this poor fellow could not raise 
the quarter of that." 

"But why not interest other people in the project, 
and take half, if he could not have the whole ?" 

" Exactly ; that was what he wanted to do ; but he 
never dared go to rich men, for fear they would take 
the whole affair out of his hands, and leave him noth- 
ing. He came to people like me, and we naturally 
hesitated to invest our small capitals in an old con- 
vent at the word of a letter. It would have been ru- 
inous to buy and not find a treasure ; worse than that, 
it would have been ridiculous. So the affair went on, 
until, in fine, I nearly forgot it. It is now two or 
three years, perhaps more, since I have heard speak 
of the convent treasure." 



144 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

The count was evidently somewhat fascinated by 
the romantic bubble which had been blown for him. 
He wondered how large the treasure might be, and ob- 
served that it would be a pious action to restore it, or 
even part of it, to the Church. He put a variety of 
questions to Trocon concerning the situation and qual- 
ity of the building, the possibility of changing it into 
a water-cure establishment, the value of its lands for 
agricultural purposes, and the supposed price set upon 
the whole demesne by government. The other prom- 
ised to obtain him all needful information to commence 
the enterprise ; he would guide him to the convent, 
show him the metalliferous spot, and get him a sight 
of the letter. 

"Good," said the count. "We will go there to- 
gether some day, after we have finished our cures. 
By the way, it would be well to obtain the services of 
a mesmeric medium. I have an immense confidence 
in mesmerism ; I have known some cases of the most 
extraordinary. I will look up a subject in Paris, and 
see what he can reveal. You will come to see me at 
my rooms in the Faubourg St. Germain. If you can 
not come, write where you will meet me ; we will go 
to the spot in company." 

There the matter rested. The count left, and we 
heard no news from him except that he was in Paris, 
and well. Very likely he had lost his interest in the 
gilded mystery. Three weeks or more after his de- 
parture, the conversation at table happened to float into 
the confused eddies of a discussion concerning mes- 
merism. " I can relate a rather curious circumstance 
connected with that subject," said the doctor. " I was 



STORY-TELLING IN DIVONNE. 145 

driving in my caleche near Mantry, about two years 
ago, when I overtook a woman walking alone. She 
was a decent-looking person of about thirty, and I in- 
vited her to take a seat beside me. She accepted, 
mounted, talked away heartily, and soon managed to 
give me a pretty full account of herself. She said that 
she and her husband were public officials, after a fash- 
ion, having been hired to take care of a deserted con- 
vent about a league from Mantry, which was govern- 
ment property. She added that there had been re- 
ports of a treasure hidden somewhere in the precincts, 
but that no attempt had been made to discover it un- 
til a few nights before our meeting. They were then 
awakened after midnight by noises about the building, 
and heard them continue some time, but dared not go 
out to discover the cause of them for fear of being at- 
tacked by robbers. The next morning they found a 
deep excavation freshly made under the foundations 
of a ruined stairway in one corner of the inclosure. 
During the day her husband went down to the city 
on some errand, and mentioned to his acquaintances 
the fright that he had just experienced. In exchange, 
he learned that a gentleman from Lyons, accompanied 
by a well-known mesmeric medium, had visited Man- 
try, with the supposed intention of discovering the 
convent treasure ; that they had been absent from the 
hotel all the night previous, and had returned to it in 
the morning only to take a private carriage and set 
out immediately on the road to Lyons. That was all 
that any one knew certainly, but the woman fully be- 
lieved that these people had carried off the treasure. 
It was a curious story." 

a 



146 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

While the doctor was thus narrating, I saw that 
Trocon listened in anxious silence. "My God!" he 
broke out at the conclusion, "there goes the count's 
money." 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 147 



CHAPTEE XV. 

MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 

One of the peculiarities of us hydropaths at Divonne, 
at least while I remained, was to talk a great deal 
about animal magnetism. The fanaticism of table- 
turnings, indeed, had not yet reached France, so that 
we attempted no waltzes with the doctor's mahogany, 
and used our hats only to hang on nails or to cover 
our craniums. Still, wonders were enacted among us, 
and there were so many other wonders told of, that I 
have been able to fill a whole chapter with somnam- 
bulism, mesmerism, and their sister mysteries. Re- 
freshing be the slumber into which it lulls thee, O 
reader ! 

Among our patients was a jolly, kindly, talkative 
man called Robson, or some such name, a native of 
the north of Ireland, but very Scotchy in his accent, 
as well as in his high cheek-bones, sandy hair, and 
dry, red complexion. Trocon hated him because he 
was an Englishman, and believed, without the slightest 
provocation, that he abused his sick wife ; for it is a 
matter of faith with common Frenchmen that all John 
Bulls are abominable, shameless Bluebeards ; that they 
beat their better halves, put halters around their necks, 
and sell them for a shilling apiece. 

One day, after dinner, we were all gathered in the 
parlor, talking as sensibly as we could talk on such 



148 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

an absurd subject as mesmerism, when Robson pro- 
duced from his pocket a zinc button with a bit of cop- 
per let into the centre of one of its faces, and declared 
that by means of this magic circlet he could magnetize 
any person at all susceptible to magnetic influences. 
Advancing with a bow and a smile to the wife of 

Prince Georges L , he said, "Madame, I think 

you would be an excellent subject ; will you allow me 
to experiment on you ?" 

The princess started from her chair as if he had 
offered to bite her, and retreated several steps, mur- 
muring excitedly, "No, no, I have a horror of mes- 
merism." 

As Robson seemed slightly mortified by this repulse, 
my socialistic friend Jolivet politely stepped forward 
and offered to undergo the trial. The Irishman sur- 
veyed his cool, philosophical visage somewhat dubi- 
ously, but accepted the challenge with a proud confi- 
dence in the metal of his button. He made Jolivet 
sit down, put the bit of zinc in the palm of his right 
hand, and directed him to fix his eyes steadily on the 
glittering yellow spot in the centre. The whole com- 
pany gathered round with a mingled interest of fun 
and curiosity. Doctor Yidart showed his small white 
teeth, and glanced alternately from his countryman 
to jperfide Albion, evidently wondering what gull or 
canard was to be hatched now. The Princess Georges 

L watched with real alarm the intentness of Jol- 

ivet's gaze, and drew nervously away from him, as 
if she feared to find herself within the circle of some 
mysterious fascination. Her husband leaned against 
a pillar, crossed his grenadier arms on his large chest, 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 149 

and looked on as absorbedly as if he were studying 
his favorite author, the political economist Bastiat. 
Robson stood by his victim, regarding him attentive- 
ly, agitated but confident. At the end of five minutes 
or so he seemed to think that his magic had worked 
effectually. Removing the button with anxious cau- 
tiousness, so as not to break the spell, he proceeded to 
draw his fingers over Jolivet's eyes in such a manner 
as to close them, followed this up with a few passes, 
and then shouted, in a voice of necromantic command, 
" Vous ne jpouvez jpas ouvrir vos yeux" (You can not 
open your eyes). 

Jolivet made, to all appearance, a neck-breaking 
effort ; his eyelids quivered, and, so to speak, stood 
ajar. 

"You can not," vociferated Robson; "no, you 
can not ; I tell you you can not — you can not open 
them." 

The little lean man worked like a thrashing machine ; 
his arms flew, and the potent passes fell in swift suc- 
cession ; he grew scarlet in the face, and capered as 
if he were performing a scalp-dance. Jolivet appeared 
to sink, in spite of himself, under the supernatural in- 
fluence ; his eyelashes drooped again, and his head 
fell back like the nerveless head of a swooning man. 

" He is one of the best subjects that I ever saw ; I 
never magnetized any one so easily before," gasped 
Robson, in a perspiration, as he prepared for another 
trial of his power. He made some fresh passes down 
the arms, the body, and the legs of his captive. 
" Now you can not get up," he exclaimed ; "no, you 
can not — you can not stir. I tell you that you can 



150 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

not stir. You are my prisoner. You can not move 
hand nor foot." 

All this he rattled off with astonishing vehemence, 
in an accent that came from at least as far as the north 
of Ireland, pawing, sputtering, and dancing about like 
an angry cat, his face as flushed and fiery as that of a 
pumpkin jack-o'-lantern. Jolivet put forth his whole 
strength to rise ; his arms and legs moved almost con- 
vulsively ; he very nearly attained a staggering equi- 
librium, but the pitiless passes rained upon him like a 
shower of brickbats, and vanquished, exhausted, he 
sank slowly back into a lethargic movelessness. Kob- 
son, not a little tired himself, wiped his forehead and 
looked around with an air of triumph. "Ladies and 
gentlemen," said he, "I have subjected this man's 
physique to my will. I shall now subject his intel- 
lect, or at least his imagination, to it." 

Turning to his victim, he gave him permission to 
rise, and at once, as if relieved of a mighty weight, 
Jolivet resumed his perpendicular. "Why, you are 
out of doors," continued Kobson, in a bamboozling 
tone, very much as nurses talk to children. " Do you 
not see that we are out of doors ?" 

Jolivet nodded cheerfully, as if pleasantly conscious 
of his extra-mural condition. 

" Yes, you are out of doors, in a beautiful garden," 
proceeded the humbugging Irishman. " What a beau- 
tiful garden this is all around you ! " 

Jolivet looked at the tables, the chairs, and the car- 
petless floor with an aspect of horticultural admira- 
tion. 

" Why do you not pick some of these lovely flowers 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 151 

at your feet ?" inquired Eobson, as seductive as Satan 
in Paradise. "You need not be afraid. I give you 
liberty to do so. Pick a fine bouquet for one of the 
ladies." 

The Frenchman stooped, and began to gather imag- 
inary posies with an air of infantine delight. 

" Stop, my friend," called the necromancer. "Do 
you not see that elegant butterfly, with gold wings ? 
Catch it — run after it — quick, before it is too high!" 

Away went Jolivet down the saloon, knocking the 
chairs right and left, and jumping over the sofas in an 
uproarious steeple-chase after the fabulous insect. 

"There, you have caught it," interposed Kobson. 
"Now bring it here, and show it to the ladies," he 
added, with true Irish gallantry. Back trotted Joli- 
vet, breathless, but with a smirk of babyish delight on 
his philosophical phiz as he carefully handled the as- 
sumed prize, and made the motions of showing it 
around the company. There was by this time a great 
sensation. The doctor's skeptical smile had changed 
to an expression of curiosity and grave professional in- 
terest. Prince Georges had started from his pillar, 
and was talking rapidly with his brother in Russian. 
His wife had retreated to the other end of the room, 
and thrown herself on a sofa, covering her face with 
her white fingers. " Oh, I am frightened," she said, 
when I asked her what was the matter. " It is shock- 
ing to see one man so completely under the influence 
of another. It is insanity, and perhaps worse. Oh, 
but I have known such horrible things of magnetism ! 
I will tell you them some time." 

The next thing that started up Jolivet was a bear, 



152 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

which made him dodge about the saloon in a state of 
intense terror, until Bobson was kind enough to call 
the animal off. But now came the explanation of 
these mysteries, the disentanglement of this supernat- 
ural drama. As the Frenchman passed me in one of 
his desperate doubles to avoid the fictitious Bruin, a 
faint smile on his mouth broadened to a grin, and he 
whispered rapidly, " Do you understand ?" 

It was all a trick, then — a hoax of Jolivet's on per- 
fide Albion ! Yet even now, so admirable was his 
acting that I could scarcely believe in the jest, and won- 
dered whether, after all, he were not really magnetized 
without being conscious of it. Still, I whispered the 
joke to some of the others, and quiet grins of com- 
prehension began to steal from visage to visage. Eob- 
son, in the mean time, saw nothing, suspected nothing ; 
he sent the solemn jester on one wild goose chase after 
another ; he shouted himself hoarse with commands, 
as his subject sometimes got fractious and refused to 
obey ; in short, for more than half an hour he kept 
Jolivet and himself in a perspiration, and us in smoth- 
ered laughter. Once in a while, when by chance he 
detected a smile on the Frenchman's face, he made new 
passes at him to bring him back, as he said, to a state 
of perfect somnolency. At last, after they were both 
tired out, he willed his subject to sit, and removed the 
magnetic influence, in the most scientific manner, by a 
series of reversed passes. It was wonderful to see 
how naturally Jolivet came to, how dreamingly he 
opened his eyes, how he rubbed and stretched himself, 
and what difficulty he had in discovering where he 
was. Every body was satisfied with him, and none 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 153 

more so than the stultified Irishman. We waited with 
many sidelong smiles until Robson left the room, and 
then we poured congratulations of laughter on our ad- 
mirable comedian. 

" But you deceived all of us," said Prince Georges ; 
" that poor man was not your only victim." 

" And was it all pretense, Monsieur Jolivet ?" asked 
his princess. " Did you feel nothing all the time that 
you were doing all those things ?" 

"Nothing, Madame, except, indeed, a slight blind- 
ness or dizziness at first, produced, I suppose, by look- 
ing so long at one object." 

"And so there is no power in the button?" 
I "None at all. It is an absurdity. The idea of 
any power in it is ridiculous." 

We kept the joke a secret from Robson, and had 
more fun in the evening. Trocon was magnetized 
then, and put the saloon into confusion with his out- 
rageous struggles to escape the Irishman's bulls and 
bears, or to overtake his butterflies. We laughed our- 
selves tired ; laughed till the jest began to seem stale, 
flat, and unprofitable ; but, laugh as we might, the in- 
fatuated Robson suspected no deceit. The next day, 
that Anglophobian Trocon flatly told him of the hoax, 
and made it a matter of much public stentorian merri- 
ment. Even yet the man would believe nothing ; even 
yet he put faith in the wonders that his button had 
seemed to work ; and he turned away from Trocon's 
mocking tale with contemptuous, angry incredulity. 

"They may giggle as much as they like," he said to 
me, "but they are mistaken. That man was really 
magnetized ; but, you see, the sleep was imperfect ; he 
G 2 



154 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

partially remembers what he did, and he thinks, con- 
sequently, that he was not in a state of somnolency ; 
but I know better. I know that he was not perfectly 
himself. Don't you think so, now ?" 

I hemmed and hahed a kind of assent ; a hypocritical 
policy, indeed, but still a charitable one, for it was cer- 
tainly kindest to break the man's misfortune to him 
little by little. Jolivet's position was, for some days, 
a delicate one ; but he manoeuvred himself out of it 
with a dexterity worthy of Beaumarchais or Talley- 
rand, parrying the Irishman's angry queries and elud- 
ing his accusations with a most deceptive mixture of 
evasions and retractions. 

"Monsieur," Robson would begin, " do you mean, 
to assert that you were not really magnetized the oth- 
er day?" 

"Eh! well, it is difficult to say; I had some very 
peculiar sensations." 

" Ah !" said Robson, with a look of triumph at me ; 
"you had a sensation of dizziness, perhaps — a rather 
confused sensation ?" 

"Yes, especially when I got among the chairs and 
tables." 

"I mean," answered Robson, growing indignant 
again, " I mean a confusion of mind. You could not 
exactly tell whether you were awake or dreaming." 

" Eh ! well, yes ; it was something like a dream, I 
must acknowledge." 

"Exactly. But now, when people dream, they are 
asleep, you know ; so you must have been asleep. Was 
it not so ?" 

"No — no — I — I — rather think that I was not pre- 
cisely asleep." 



MESMEEISM IN DIVONNE. 155 

"How, sir ! do you mean to say that you were broad 
awake at the time that you pretended to be in a mag- 
netic state ?" 

"Excuse me, I did not say broad awake. There 
are states during which somnolency and wakefulness 
verge into one another. I do not like to affirm posi- 
tively what my condition was. It was a very curious 
one." 

" So you really had some curious sensations ? I 
thought so. Well, what were they, as near as you 
can describe ?" 

" Why, it is difficult to state such matters with ac- 
curacy. A sensation is so vague, so spiritual a thing 
that it is impossible for language to precisely grasp 
and convey it." 

"Did you ever have such sensations before, Mon- 
sieur Jolivet ? I ask you seriously." 

"Yes — on the whole, yes, I think I have — some- 
what similar, but always under very peculiar circum- 
stances." 

"I do believe that that man was really magnet- 
ized," said Eobson, turning to address me in English. 
"He doesn't know whether he was or not. This 
Trocon says that he wasn't, because he thinks it is a 
pretty joke to say so ; but I know better. Mark my 
words, sir, that man was really asleep." 

Gradually, however, he allowed himself to believe ; 
at first, it is true, wrathfully and with much offended 
dignity, but thinking better of it soon, and falling back 
into his natural kind sociability. 

" I will tell you some things that I know of this 
animal magnetism," said Princess Georges L to 



156 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

me. " You shall judge from them whether I am not 
right in being afraid of these mesmerizers and their 
powers. This Monsieur Robson has not magnetized 
any body ; perhaps he can not do it ; but there are 
people who can. I had a cousin who was engaged to 
a gentleman in Moscow. He was a very successful 
magnetizer; not by profession, you understand, but 
for his amusement. He magnetized my cousin often, 
and, after a time, he brought her so completely under 
his influence that he could put her asleep in a moment. 
We begged her not to submit to it, but she was so 
fascinated by him that she would not hearken to us ; 
and I think that he magnetized her so often in order 
to subject her perfectly to his will, and thus finally 
gain possession of her property. At last her friends 
learned some very bad things of him — oh ! very bad ; 
and so they broke off the engagement. He was furi- 
ous, and declared that he had an empire over her which 
should give him revenge. Eh ! well, he used to walk 
by the house and magnetize her from the street, so 
that, no matter what she was doing or with whom she 
was talking, she would fall asleep immediately. Im- 
agine what a dreadful thing that was, to be so under 
the influence of this bad and revengeful man. But 
that was not all. Her mother tried to rescue her from 
this gentleman's power by taking her to a country 
seat two hundred leagues from Moscow. But even 
there he would mesmerize her ; yes, without leaving 
the city or his room, he would will that she should 
sleep ; and then she would fall into this dreadful mag- 
netic state, and remain in it until they brought some 
mesmerizer to break the charm. He persecuted her in 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 157 

that way for a long time ; and he could still, if he de- 
sired to do so. That is one affair that has made me so 
afraid of mesmerism. I know some other things about 
it, but none so bad as that. I do believe that evil spir- 
its have much to do with it, and that people act very 
wrongly in meddling with such an awful mystery." 

Now, then, for some of the serious mesmeric, mag- 
netic, or somnambulistic phenomena which occurred in 
Divonne. Two or three weeks before my departure, 
a sick servant-girl belonging in Geneva came to the 
Establishment. An excitable, half-hypped creature, 
she soon began to exhibit nervous crises of a singular 
character, during which she was able, although con- 
fined in bed, to tell what persons were in the passages, 
and even in the various chambers of the building. 
For instance, she one day let out the small scandal 
that the maid of an English lady, who lodged in a dif- 
ferent story and at quite a distance, was receiving, in 
the absence of her mistress, a friendly visit from the 
valet of Prince Eugene. How she discovered these 
things, whether by an unnatural and diseased suscep- 
tibility of the ear, or whether by some stupid spiritual 
means of knowledge, is one of those questions that 
compel me to pause for a reply. 

But this damsel's performances in the way of second- 
sight were mere fiddle-faddle in comparison with the 
magnetic feats of a lady who was under treatment at 
the Establishment the year before. She was a resident 
of Nyon, in the Swiss canton of Vaud ; about thirty- 
five years of age, I think ; placed in highly respect- 
able society ; married, and in excellent circumstances 
otherwise. Like the Genevese girl, she had violent 



158 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

nervous attacks, similar to cataleptic fits, if there "be 
such a thing as catalepsy. She was easily mesmerized 
by the common system of passes ; often, too, she fell in- 
voluntarily into the magnetic slumber. It is a permis- 
sible eccentricity, I believe, in mesmerized persons, to 
show a particular attraction toward some individuals, 
and an equally strong repulsion from others, without 
giving any reasons for the said sentiments, or fol- 
lowing them up in ordinary life. The high favor- 
ite of this lady, during her unnatural sleep, was the 
doctor's brother, and her chief abomination, even to 
spasms, grimaces, and flight, was the doctor himself. 
These feelings were remarkable for the distinctness 
and violence of their expression, but still more remark- 
able because they were almost the converse of her 
preferences while awake, when the doctor was her fa- 
vorite. It was a strange thing, several persons assured 
me, to see this lady moving in her sleep about the 
grounds ; meeting one patient with a smile of supreme 
pleasure, shuddering and grimacing at the approach of 
another, flying from a third, or passing him at the 
greatest distance allowed by the breadth of the path- 
way. She was so weak as often to be incapable of 
walking until she had been mesmerized; and, as 
movement is necessary after the baths, they were 
obliged, nearly every day, to throw her into the slum- 
ber. By this constant use, her mesmeric capacities 
were developed to an extraordinary degree, and she be- 
came one of the most remarkable mediums that I ever 
heard mentioned. 

For instance, while in a somnambulic state, she was 
asked by the doctor's brother what she saw. 



MESMEEISM IN DIVONNE. 159 

" I see my sister-in-law, who lives at Nyon," she an- 
swered. " It is strange, too, she is not at Nyon — she 
is somewhere else. Ah ! I see ; she is in my house 
outside of the city ; she is laying down carpets and ar- 
ranging the rooms for me. That is very kind indeed." 

After some moments she spoke again. 

"They have brought her a letter, and she is read- 
ing it. It is for me." 

" What is in the letter ?" asked M. Yidart. " Can 
you read it ?" 

"No, I can not see it very well. Stop! let me 
look a moment. Ah ! yes, I can read it now." 

She repeated, as if verbatim, what seemed to be a 
short note, referring, I believe, to the furniture of the 
country house. M. Yidart took down the words as 
they were spoken, made a memorandum of the time, 
and immediately dispatched a servant to Nyon, to see 
if the vision had been correct. The Nyonese lady 
wrote back that she was in the said house at the hour 
mentioned ; that she had occupied herself there with 
cleaning the rooms and setting the furniture in order ; 
and that, receiving a note directed to her sister-in-law, 
she had taken the liberty to open it. By the messen- 
ger she forwarded the note, which proved to be word 
for word what M. Yidart had written down from the 
lips of the somnambulist. 

But on another occasion this invalid's second-sight 
went farther still, and struck, to all appearance, within 
the solemn boundaries of the miraculous. In a gen- 
eral way, I entertain very disrespectful opinions of 
modern miracles. I can barely manage to suppose 
that a magnetic subject may look into a distant pres- 



160 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ent ; "but I know that lie can not see the future, for the 
reason that the future is always unaccomplished and 
inexistent. Yet this woman certainly uttered a proph- 
ecy, which, at the appointed day and hour, had an as- 
tonishing, improbable fulfillment. Bound in one of 
her usual mesmeric slumbers, she began to talk of an 
approaching nervous crisis, more violent than any she 
had yet experienced, mentioning the date on which it 
would occur, even to the hour, which was a little after 
noontide. It would last eighteen days, she said ; she 
dreaded to look forward to it ; still, when it was over, 
she would be better. 

"Do you see no means of averting this attack?" 
asked M.Vidart. 

"No, I see none." 

" Will it be caused by any particular circumstance?" 

" Yes ; it will follow upon a great fright that is go- 
ing to befall me." 

" Is there no way of avoiding this fright?" 

"No, I see none. No, there is none." 

" What will be the cause of this fright ?" 

" I can not see." 

" Search carefully." 

"I do so; I am watching; but no, I can not see. 
It wearies me to look." 

On waking, she, as usual, had no recollection of 
what had passed in her sleep ; and, by the doctor's 
orders, every one kept silence on the subject, lest the 
mere expectation of such an attack should produce it ; 
so that when the day came she knew nothing of her 
prophecy. A constant watch was maintained over 
her; and, on various pretenses, she was kept in her 



MESMERISM IN DIVONNE. 161 

chamber, her husband remaining with her most of the 
time, and guarding vigilantly against every possible 
cause of terror. During the forenoon of the day pre- 
dicted, he received a visit from an old friend, who had 
stopped at Divonne expressly to see him, and who pro- 
posed that they should take a jovial dinner together at 
the village tavern. He declined, alleging that his wife 
was more unwell than usual, and that he thought it 
imprudent to leave her. "But stay thou and dine 
with me," he added ; "we will make a party of three 
in my wife's room." 

The other accepted, and at one they sat down to 
table. The meal was about half over, when the guest 
fell out of his chair in an apoplectic fit, and expired 
almost immediately. The sick woman burst into hys- 
terics of terror, lapsing at length into a cataleptic state, 
in which for eighteen days she remained rigid and 
senseless. Furthermore, in order that the prophecy 
might be fulfilled in every particular, a considerable 
improvement in her health dated from the close of this 
frightful paralysis. 

Now I can not explain this extraordinary circum- 
stance in accordance with any known law of nature, but 
I think I can affirm positively that it happened. I know 
that the brothers Yidart are credible men; that this 
event was a common matter of talk among the patients 
of the Establishment ; and that the doctor has boldly 
published an account of it in a Eeport on his first two 
years of hydropathic treatment. I have not that Re- 
port with me, and it is possible that my memory has 
varied from it in some particulars ; but I think that, 
at all events, I have not exaggerated the marvelous- 



162 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ness of the story. I can give no explanation, and I 
suppose that I might as well not trouble myself to 
ask one. Reichenbach is probably the only notable 
man of science who would try to answer me, and 
Reichenbach is hidden at Schloss Reisenberg, near Vi- 
enna, making magnetic experiments in the most occult 
of dark chambers. 

But I must come to an end in my gossip about Di- 
vonne. The first of June arrived before I quitted this 
French hamlet, where I had passed nearly eight 
months in a damp but most agreeable manner. My 
recovery, if not complete, had at least reached a point 
far beyond the hopes of a year previous. Given up 
as a bad job by a dozen allopaths in succession, I had 
been raised by the chill potency of pure water to as 
high a degree of health as is the ordinary award of 
mortals. It was time to see Paris and Italy again — 
time to walk anew beneath the glory of pictures and 
the grandeur of temples. I bade a truly reluctant 
adieu to my friends of all nations, English, French, 
Swiss, and Russians. The brothers Vidart kissed me 
on both cheeks, and on both cheeks I kissed them in 
reply. We tore our amicable mustaches apart, and 
I found myself once more alone in Europe. 



A CHEAP WATERING-PLACE. 163 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A CHEAP WATERING-PLACE. 

Should one of my readers desire to pass a cheap 
summer in a picturesque locality, I can tell him where 
he may realize his wishes. In the green valley of the 
Ehone, a few miles above the head of Lake Leman, 
and nearly surrounded by mountains, lies a little Swiss 
village called Bex, somewhat celebrated for its salt 
and medicinal springs. As its diurnal board and lodg- 
ing only cost two francs and a half, and the style of 
entertainment is proportionably simple, the idlers and 
invalids who fill its brace of hotels are usually per- 
sons of moderate fortunes and unostentatious habits. 
I was impelled to Bex by economical motives, for one 
letter of credit was nearly exhausted, and its successor 
did not arrive as I had expected. 

From Geneva a nice little steam-boat carried me at 
a very respectable speed up the clear length of Leman. 
Green mountains, snowy mountains, rose all along the 
eastern horizon in a wonderful waste of wild, various 
magnificence, below which sloped down to the lake 
grassy shores, waving with trees, flecked with coun- 
try seats and farm-houses, or more densely populous 
here and there with villages and quaint little cities. 
On the other side, beneath the great mass of the Jura, 
I could see the hill of Divonne and many other land- 
marks familiar to my footsteps. I passed Nyon, hel- 
meted with its old chateau, and strained my eyes use- 



164 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

lessly to catch sight of Maitre Jacques on his pedes- 
tal in the market-street. Vevay welcomed me for the 
night to the hospitality of one of its clean and elegant 
hotels. 

In the morning I met what was novel to me, an 
American. I was fast asleep when the news of his 
presence in Vevay was thundered at my door "by the 
knuckles of a heralding waiter, ilt my invitation to 
enter, the rapping individual respectfully glided into 
the room, and announced that General Jones was in 
the parlor, and would be happy to see me. 

"You are mistaken," said I, rubbing my eyes 
open. 

"Excuse me, Monsieur; not at all; he is really 
there." 

"I mean that he is mistaken," I replied, gradually 
getting my senses together. 

"It is possible," said the waiter, dubiously. 

" I think that he wants somebody else," resumed I, 
beginning to define my position more exactly. " I 
believe I don't know any General Jones." 

" Monsieur calls himself Monsieur De Forest — is it 
not so ?" 

"Exactly." 

"Eh ! well, it is precisely Monsieur De Forest that 
General Jones demands to see." 

"Indeed! Perhaps he knows some of my family. 
Perhaps he wants to lend me some money now. Is 
he an American or an Englishman ?" 

"An American, Monsieur; from the United States 
even." 

" Tell him that I will be down directly." 






A CHEAP WATEEING-PLACE. 165 

"Yes, Monsieur." 

The waiter disappeared, and, dressing hastily, I hur- 
ried down stairs to the cozy little breakfast-hall, which 
also served as a reception-room. It was empty ; but 
presently a small, soft-footed, smiling gentleman of 
sixty-five stepped gently into it through a door which 
opened on the garden. A careful look at his quiet lit- 
tle figure and benevolent face satisfied me that we had 
never met before. Now, thinks I to myself, you are 
going to apologize ; now you are going to blame your- 
self severely for your mistake ; now you are going to 
say how sorry you are for having called me up at sev- 
en in the morning. Not at all. He smiled his way 
toward me, bowed with cheerful politeness, and said, 
in a low, pleasant voice, " Mr. De Forest, I believe." 

I inclined and smiled, for his courtesy was irresisti- 
ble, and would have mollified a John Bull, had it been 
even three o'clock in the morning. 

"My name is Jones, sir — General Jones, of Balti- 
more." 

I bowed again, shook hands with him, and waited 
for further developments. 

" I saw your name on the book, sir." 

"Indeed! ah!" 

"I saw that you were an American," he finished, 
with the same smile of unspeakable good-nature. 

That was it. He had seen that I was an American. 
That was the reason why he called me up at seven in 
the morning. That was the reason why he wanted to 
get a sight of my unknown physiognomy. I saw his 
character at a glance, and the style of man to which he 
belonged. He was one of that large class of excellent 



166 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

citizens and bad cosmopolites who divide humanity 
into two species, foreigners and Americans ; the former 
a queer and incomprehensible set at best, the latter one 
huge brotherhood of fine fellows, who can never know 
too much of each other. 

" I took the liberty of calling you up, sir, thinking 
you might be going to Berne," he continued. "lam 
going to Berne myself, sir ; but, unfortunately, I have 
lost my company. I can not bear to travel alone. I 
do not enjoy myself, sir, unless I have some American 
along with me. I have been traveling with young 
Mr. Smith, of New York, sir, of the firm of Smith & 
Company — a fine young man, sir, a very fine young 
man. Do you know Mr. Smith ? No ? I should be 
happy to introduce you, sir. You would be pleased 
to know him. One of the finest young Americans 
that I ever saw, sir. It does my heart good, sir, to 
meet these young fellows about Europe who are an 
honor to their country." 

Thus he ran on in an amiable, smiling, garrulous 
style, through which his patriotism shone like a sun 
through a genial noontide. I told him that, unfortu- 
nately, I was not going to Berne, but that we could at 
least breakfast together before he departed. At table 
I happened to mention that he was the first American 
to whom I had spoken for nine months or over. He 
fell back in his chair with amazement, and then, lay- 
ing down his knife and fork, said, in a tone of mild 
reproach, " Sir, you must not forget your language 
and your country." 

From his conversation I found that he was a man 
of excellent social position, and knew personally many 



A CHEAP WATERING-PLACE. 167 

of our leading characters at Washington. We parted 
on rising from the breakfast-table, and never met after- 
ward. 

With due respect to the opinion of General Jones, 
who is an older and more noticeable person than my- 
self, I think it is folly to consort much abroad with 
Americans. It is pleasant, indeed, to follow out such 
a patriotic line of conduct; but, on the other hand, 
foreign languages are not acquired, foreign character 
is not effectively studied, and the tourist returns home 
with very nearly the same set of ideas that he possessed 
at starting. Now all wisdom is surely not confined by 
American shores, and even religion seems to have ex- 
isted before the Declaration of Independence. A man 
may learn something good, therefore, by frequenting 
the society of Europeans, and, at all events, he is pret- 
ty sure to learn something novel. "Englishmen do not 
travel to see Englishmen," says Sterne, and the maxim 
might profitably be made universal in its application. 

Speaking of American travelers pur sang, I may as 
well mention one of my compatriots whom I saw at 
Vevay on a subsequent visit. Landing from the 
steamer in a flat-bottomed boat, I beheld among the 
trunks and boxes which filled the bow a little withered 
man of forty-five, remarkable at first sight for a most 
care-worn expression, as if he were worried nearly to 
death by constantly looking after his baggage. He 
wore a black dress coat, black pants, black beaver, and 
showed a dark face, indigoed in spots by an intensely 
black beard of two days' growth ; in short, he was one 
of those men who give you the impression of having 
very little white about them, and of that little being 



168 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

mostly blue. He held by the hand a dingy youngster, 
evidently his son, about the size of a twelve-years old 
boy, but otherwise as soberly venerable in appearance 
as a Theban mummy. As soon as the scow touched 
the shore, both scrambled out in great haste, and began 
to watch with nervous solicitude the landing of the bag- 
gage. Presently the black-and-blue gentleman, unable 
to repress his apprehensions, stepped up to one of the 
porters, and said in English, in an anxious, confiden- 
tial tone, "Won't you bring that black trunk ashore? 
That black one — there — at the end of the boat." 

" Comment, Monsieur?" said the burly, astonished 
Swiss. 

" I don't speak French," remarked my countryman, 
slowly, distinctly, and with a gravity, a concern which 
was almost anguish. "I don't speak French; but I 
want that black trunk at the end of the boat." 

"Je ne comprends j>as, Monsieur" 

"I say I don't speak French; but it's the black 
trunk — the black one — black — black." 

By dint of pointing very hard with his umbrella, he 
eventually made himself understood. The distin- 
guished black trunk was safely disembarked and con- 
signed to a baggage-cart, wherepon chip and block 
trotted off before it to a hotel. 

"MonDieu, Monsieur," said the chief waiter of the 
same hotel to me, "what a quantity of your people 
travel without speaking one word of any language but 
their own ! They are astonishing for that. We have 
English and Germans here sometimes who speak very 
little French, but they know something of it, or at 
least have some linguist in the party. But Americans 



A CHEAP WATEUING-rLACE. 169 

come here by the half dozen, by the dozen, by twenty 
together, and not an individual of the whole set can 
understand the first word that is said to him. It is 
extraordinary, Monsieur — really comic sometimes." 

It is comic and extraordinary both. Considering 
what a practical people we are, our neglect of living 
lauguages is marvelous as well as absurd. Of what 
use are Greek and Latin to the mass of our young 
people, whether boys or girls, compared with French 
and German ? How many of our valedictorians, after 
seven years' hard study over the classics, could make 
a bargain in the tongue of Cicero, or understand a new 
joke of Aristophanes ? I need not dilate upon the 
facts that Cicero is now beyond the reach of a trade, 
and that Aristophanes perpetrates no more witticisms. 
But this is a great subject, and I shall therefore let it 
slide, as the bear said when he got out of the way of 
the avalanche. 

Instead of describing Clarens and Chillon, I shall 
refer the insatiable reader to Rousseau, Byron, and a 
host of other depictive people who have visited these 
famous places. Taking an economical omnibus at 
Villeneuve, I proceeded through a delightful verdure, 
dewy with fresh showers, to Bex. I was installed in 
a room of about seven feet by nine, walled with paste- 
board, or something equally thin, and furnished much 
in the simple style of Graefenberg. At the table d'hote 
there were something like thirty persons, of whom 
more than half were subjects of her Britannic majesty. 
On my right was an Irish widow, past meridian, but 
lively, with two blonde daughters of nineteen and 
twenty, the youngest decidedly handsome. Directly 

H 



170 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

opposite them sat an Irish doctor, a middle-aged man 
of uncommon jolliness, with one blue eye aslant, and 
both moistened by kirschwasser. "Madame," said 
he, dipping a table-spoon into some equivocal hash, 
" will ye allow me to help ye to some of this dish ? I 
should be happy to tell ye what it is, but in me igno- 
rance of the French language, and especially of the 
French cookery-book, the thing is impossible." 

Every body around laughed, of course ; and as a 
laugh is an introduction at Bex, our end of the table 
was soon in a breeze of conversation. It was not 
long before I discovered a person who seemed to have 
some rights of intimacy with my lady neighbors. I 
wish to be as far as possible from blabbing a secret, 
but, as the affair has probably gone much farther be- 
fore this, there can be no harm in insinuating that he 
was the engaged lover of the youngest and prettiest of 
the two Irish sisters. A very homely fellow he was, 
to claim so handsome a girl ; not less than forty, I am 
sure, and as stupid a man as ever wore buttons. I 
should say that he was stupid so far as my insight ex- 
tended, for I heard that he was well educated, and 
could talk on some subjects very sensibly. Unfortu- 
nately, those particular subjects never came up while 
I had the excitement of being in his company. He 
was evidently as bashful as a child, and awkward too 
in his bashfulness beyond patience. It was laughable 
to see him with those lovely girls, and to note the con- 
trast between their young gayety and his elderly em- 
barrassment. Occasionally he made a clumsy effort 
to appear easy, and struggled into a broad, unexpected 
laugh, but inevitably finished by getting frightened 



A CHEAP WATEKING-PLACE. 171 

and shutting up his mouth all at once, as if he had 
forgotten why he opened it. 

" What a curious fellow!" said a dark, slender, eld- 
erly West Indian to me, as this remarkable lover pass- 
ed the bench where we were enjoying a cool twilight 
breeze. " Why, he is a monomaniac — nothing less. 
I have seen him before — met him at Naples. He 
wouldn't go down stairs the right way, but always 
backed down, because he had an idea that the other 
mode of descent injured his digestion. Extraordinary 
man for that bright girl to take up with. He is rich, 
they say, and of a very good family. But it's wrong, 
sir; it's against nature. They'll come to grief." 

An equally curious and much more amusing per- 
sonage was the Irish doctor, whom I soon discovered 
to be a man of fine capacities and attainments, gifted 
also with the fluent conversation and abundant humor 
indigenous to the Emerald Isle. He had an intense 
dislike to the encumbrance of baggage, and never car- 
ried either trunk or carpet-bag. To supply the defi- 
ciency, he had got himself an overcoat with pockets a 
foot and a half deep, in which he stowed a pair of shoes, 
four shirts, four pair of socks, and a couple or so of 
handkerchiefs. " It's decidedly more convaynient 
than a trunk," he observed to me. "Don't ye see? 
I jist put me overcoat on me arm and walk ofT, and 
that's an end of it. I never have any of your foreign 
porters around me, wanting to carry me trunks ; no 
extra baggage to pay for either, and no trouble at the 
custom-houses. But it produces a curious effect, I 
assure ye. When I landed at Boulogne, I took me 
coat on me arm, and was walking off free and easy to 



172 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

find a hotel, ye see. One of the custom-house men 
spied me, and says he, c Monsieur ! Monsieur ! bag- 
age T says he; 'bagageP Well, I jist put me hand 
on me coat and nodded, and the fellow grinned, ye see, 
and never said another word. Don't ye see? At 
Meurice's Hotel they always called me the Monsieur 
sans bagage. People laugh, of course, but it saves a 
deal of trouble. Now don't ye see ?" 

The doctor cherished the old English idea that 
fighting is an essential part of a boy's education. 
"Why, I'll tell ye an anecdote," said he. "Jist before 
I left Ireland, the little son of one of my old friends 
came to me — a bright little fellow, that I take as much 
delight in as if he was me own. He told me how an- 
other boy had been insulting him. * Well,' says I, 
' an' what did ye do to him ?' Says he, ' I hit him so, 
right aside of his head.' 'Well,' says I, 'ye did 
wrong ; ye shouldn't have hit him that way ; ye 
should have hit him so, straight forward from the 
shoulder, and right between the eyes.' That's the 
kind of advice that I think is good for boys. Don't 
ye see ?" 

This reminds me of what I heard from Mrs. L , 

the wife of an English clergyman of genteel birth, who 
has a brother in Parliament, and whose father is a 

bishop. Mrs. L said that when her husband was 

at school, his right reverend parent used to give him 
sixpence every time he "whopped" a boy bigger than 
himself. Robust education that, for a family so 
much in the apostolic line. I wonder how much St. 
Paul would have given a boy for whopping a school- 
fellow ? 



1 



A CHEAP WATERING-PLACE. 173 

My most interesting acquaintance at Bex was Mon- 
sieur Henri M , a young man of one of those an- 
cient though untitled families which constitute the 
noblesse of Berne. That famous canton, it must be 
noted, was for centuries little more than an oligarchy, 
ruled by a race of patricians as sternly proud and im- 
perious as the old Claudii or Cornelii of Rome. One 
of the ancestors of my friend had commanded in the 
first battle of Novara, fought between the Swiss and the 
soldiers of Francis I. of France, where nine thousand 
mountaineer spearmen rushed on the intrenchments of 
twenty-six thousand trained mercenaries — infantry, ar- 
tillery, and cavalry — and, after a horrible hand-to-hand 
carnage, obtained an astonishing victory, killing ten 
thousand of their enemies on the spot, and so dismay- 
ing the rest that they fled altogether from Italy. 

The Bernese aristocracy still exist as a separate 
class, seldom intermarrying with the commonalty of 
the city. Several of the families, and perhaps most 
of them, possess a fund, in some cases of considerable 
amount, which is applied to the support of such rep- 
resentatives of the race as are unable to live in a dig- 
nified manner on their own resources. The patrician 
influence, too, is considerable in providing small offices 
for decayed gentility, and thus it rarely happens that 
a sprig of ancient Bernese stock is obliged to dirty it- 
self with any plebeian occupation. 

Mr. M spoke English, French, and German 

with equal facility, the former with such an American 
accent that I at first addressed him as a fellow-coun- 
tryman. The doctor, therefore, could talk with him, 
and he took occasion to attack him one day for re- 



174 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

maining a "bachelor. " Here ye are, Mr. M ," said 

he, "a man with sense enough to perceive the advan- 
tages of matrimony, and yet ye won't put your fin- 
gers into the cake to pull out a plum. Have ye 
any philosophical objections to marriage ? Have ye, 
now ?" 

" Certainly not. I think that every man ought to 
marry, unless there should be particular circumstances 
in his case to render it imprudent or improper." 

" Then why don't ye set the example, instead of 
idling away your life in talking about it ? What is 
the use of making a hypocrite of yourself by dis- 
coursing in this Christian style about your duty, and 
then never doing it ? But perhaps ye think that a 
Swiss wouldn't make a good husband, and ye don't 
want to trouble any lady with a bad house-fellow." 

" Oh ! that can't be the reason," interrupted a mid- 
dle-aged English lady, who was blessed with two un- 
married daughters. " The Swiss make very good 
husbands. Some of my friends married in Switzer- 
land. Don't your countrymen make good husbands, 
Mr. M ?" 

"I believe so," laughed the questioned bachelor, 
who, by the way, was a flaming patriot. 

"And how is it with the French?" asked the doc- 
tor. "What sort of a Benedict does a Frenchman 
make, ma'am ?" 

" Oh, a very bad one. I never would marry a French- 
man." 

"Well, and the Germans ?" continued the Irishman. 
" Come, we must find out the latitudes and longitudes 
that produce the best husbands." 



A CHEAP WATERING-PLACE. 175 

"Why, the Germans do very well, I believe," said 
the lady. " Is it not so, Mr. M ?" 

"No, Madame. I think the Germans bad husbands 
— certainly very far inferior to the English and Ameri- 
cans." 

" Indeed ! You surprise me," returned the English- 
woman; "I thought they were such good-natured men, 
and so sentimental." 

"What do they do to their wives, Mr. M ?" 

broke in the doctor. " Come, what is it that these 
German fellows do to their wives ?" 

" That is just the difficulty, doctor. They do noth- 
ing at all to them, good or bad ; they leave them per- 
fectly alone, and pass their time studying, or hunting, 
or gossiping in the beer-houses." 

"Well, that's bad, to be sure. What an outrage on 
the sex, to neglect it for beer, rabbits, and philosophy!" 

To perceive the doctor's last hit, it must be under- 
stood that Mr. M was himself a philosopher, one 

of those enthusiastic scholars who honor the great Ger- 
man race by their daring thought and tenacious indus- 
try of research. He was elaborating even then a sys- 
tem which, according to his belief, comprehended Na- 
ture, and explained the evil which is in the world. 

When the doctor left Bex, I ran out to the omnibus 
to get a sight of his marvelous overcoat. " There it 
is," said he, holding up the original garment with the 
pride of a successful inventor. "Now, how many 
shirts have I got in here ?" 

"Four." 

" Eight. And how many shoes ?" 

" One pair." 



176 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

" Right. And liow many socks ?" 

"Six pair." 

"Wrong. Four pair of socks, one pair of shoes, 
six shirts, and a couple of handkerchiefs. That's jist 
enough for convaynience, and not enough for trouble. 
Don't ye see ? Good-by to ye." 

I soon followed him to Paris to meet my expected 
letters. 



DINNERS AND DINERS IN PARIS. 177 



CHAPTER XVII. 

DINNERS AND DINERS IN PARIS. 

I SHALL make short work of Paris. Dick Tinto has 
been there with his brush, Mr. Jarves with his specta- 
cles, and Sir Francis Head with his wonderful faculty 
at picking out the odd sticks of French existence. 

Strolling down the Boulevard a few days after my 
arrival, I stumbled over my old comrade Neuville, 
whom I had left nearly a year previous up to his neck 
in Silesian fountains. Neuville remained about ten 
months at Graefenberg, including an entire winter, and 
only took flight when Priessnitz died, and Madame un- 
dertook to carry on the establishment herself. " Good 
heavens !" said he, " I don't see how I stood it. I cut 
my hair an inch long, and cut my hat altogether. We 
had three feet of snow, and frosts sharp enough to 
make a white bear whine. We used to slide down the 
Graefenberg hill on sleds ; all of us had sleds, and most 
of us had no hats : you never saw such a set of ma- 
niacs." 

Anxious for the honor of hydropathy, I asked him 
how it was that Priessnitz, who had cured so many 
others, should happen to die himself. He said that 
the disease was some internal disarrangement, caused 
by the kick of a horse many years before ; that the 
brave old fellow fell in the breach, as it were, taking 
his cure and his usual w T alk up to the very day of his 
decease. It was no new malady, then, that overcame 
112 



178 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

him ; it was the one against which he had been com- 
bating for a quarter of a century; the one, in fact, which 
had led him to invent his peculiar system of treatment. 
He had raised himself from a bed of helplessness, but 
he could not entirely rebuild his broken constitution, 
and at last death was the conqueror. During a year 
or more he had foreseen his imminent dissolution, and 
had even warned the citizens of Freiwaldau not to 
build too largely ; for, said he, I shall soon be gone, 
and then you will see no more of these invalids who 
now buy your goods and fill your houses. It fell out 
as he had expected ; for after his death, after the mighty 
funeral which then covered the slope of Graefenberg, 
there was a rapid dispersion of those hundreds whom 
his fame had gathered. He left a famous name, a 
worthy name, but no successor. 

Neuville took flight with the others, and went to It- 
aly, from whence he had recently come on to Paris. 
I asked him where he was staying. 

" In an English family — a widow lady and her broth- 
er ; very good-hearted sort of people ; queer woman, 
though — very queer. You had better come round." 

I went round and saw Mrs. Keene, a tall, thin, an- 
gular woman of nearly forty-five, with the remains of 
decent looks about her, and a sufficient air of amiabil- 
ity to recommend her as a landlady. The rooms were 
excellent and well furnished ; the street, Rue Castig- 
lione, was one of the finest in Paris. After three 
quarters of a year passed in French society, I felt just- 
ified in exposing myself to the contact of a little En- 
glish. I therefore migrated to Mrs. Keene's from my 
hotel, to the great discontent of the landlord, who re- 



DINNERS AND DINERS IN PARIS. 179 

venged himself by refusing to inform my tailor and 
shoemaker of my whereabouts, thus delaying me a 
few days in the receipt of boots and pantaloons. 

Mrs. Keene was at bottom a thoroughly English 
character, of London make originally, but greatly mod- 
ified when I knew her by foreign experiences. She 
misused the H occasionally, and inflicted various oth- 
er unfllial outrages on her mother tongue. She was 
particularly aggravating toward the long words, drag- 
ging them into the conversation, so to speak, by the 
hair of their heads. It was curious to observe, also, 
what a confusion had taken place in her ideas of the 
ethics of society, in consequence of a sort of blending 
of French and English moralities. I could really give 
no idea of the contradiction of her judgments on va- 
rious Parisian scandals without detailing lone: tea-ta- 
ble conversations, too dull for repetition. Sometimes 
a runaway wife would be horribly mangled by her vir- 
tuous criticism, and then, again, a similar culprit would 
be pardoned, as having " served her husband perfectly 
right, and good enough for him." But she was always 
and unchangeably savage on young men who had the 
bad taste to hang around " them nasty grisettes" The 
g?nsettes, be it understood, are the shop-girls and sew- 
ing-girls of France, a set very generally disposed to 
enter into flirtations with wealthy young foreigners. 

We soon found that we were not quite so well of? 
in Mrs. Keene's household as the first few days gave 
us reason to expect. We were not absolutely starved, 
nor very much stinted, but there was such an evident 
scarcity of provisions that we were often tempted to 
dine out. By the time we had finished eating, the 



180 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

"board was generally bare, for the unwillingness with 
which our landlady dealt out the last morsels was one 
of the most piquant sauces in the world ; enough, as 
a French gastronome would say, to make a man eat 
his own grandmother. I believe that she took a dis- 
like to my character, the sum total of which, in her 
eyes, amounted to an atrocious appetite. She used to 
glance at my empty plate with suppressed indignation, 
and then ask me if I would take another small piece, 
accentuating the " small" in a manner which seemed to 
say, "For pity's sake, don't take it; you eat me out 
of house and home." 

She was much more frank in attacking the same de- 
fect in her brother, observing snappishly, " There ! 
that's all you are going to have ; you make me ashamed 
of you." 

He was a queer, comical little man, this brother of 
hers ; a chirrupy sort of gossip, full of laughter and 
stories, and impertinently indifferent to his sister's 
"lengthened sage advices" against over-feeding ; a good 
fellow, in short, who would eat the last morsel on a plate 
with as little compunction as the first. He had been a 
tutor in various wealthy families, and now gained an in- 
adequate living by teaching English to Frenchmen and 
French to Englishmen. We used to hear a great deal 
from this talkative couple about the racing-book of a 
rich brother in England, about the carriage Mrs. Keene 
had when she was a married lady in India, about cer- 
tain lofty acquaintances of theirs in Paris who never 
came to see them ; and we actually enjoyed the honor 
of taking a thin cup of tea with a young lady of con- 
ceited manners, who, according to Mrs. Keene's story, 



DINNERS AND DINEES IN PARIS. 181 

was the sister of another young lady, "which" (still 
following Mrs. K.) had married a French duke of lofty 
nobility and immense fortune. 

At first, Neuville and I used to light our cigars 
cheerfully after dinner, and laugh ourselves tired over 
these little convivial absurdities ; but constant repeti- 
tion finally made them irksome, and by the end of a 
month we left Mrs. Keene's apartments for more gen- 
erous quarters. We found some fine rooms in the Eue 
Rochefoucauld, where we could be served with meals 
at home, or go out to the restaurant, just as our mo- 
mentary fancy decided. Our landlord and landlady 
here were two of the most simple, unsophisticated, good 
creatures that ever talked French. Father Pipelet, as 
we called the husband, was a round, fat, addle-headed 
man, as bashful as a sheep, and infinitely more awk- 
ward. He was forever buying the wrong things for 
dinner, knocking plates off the table, spreading the 
cloth rough side upward, and butting his ribs against 
the door in trying to back respectfully out of our apart- 
ments. If we laughed at him, he got into a thorough 
fidget, and danced about with a grin little short of 
idiotic in its helpless embarrassment. Mother Pipelet 
was the man of the house, and, like Mrs. Bagnet, al- 
ways knew beforehand her husband's opinion. 

Neuville was at that time nearly as ignorant of 
French as I had been when I reached Divonne ; but 
our hosts soon devised two ingenious methods of mak- 
ing their utterances comprehensible to him. Mother 
Pipelet founded her system on the hypothesis that he 
was hard of hearing, and so, putting her mouth close 
to his ear, she shouted loud enough to make a mummy 



182 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

hear through his wrapper, after which she drew back 
dubiously, and fixed her great black eyes on him with 
an expression which seemed to say, " Well, I think I 
spoke up high enough that time ; I think he understood 
me a little." 

Father Pipelet's plan was still more primitive and 
comical. He talked baby-talk to my friend — just such 
jargon as French nurses prattle to French bantlings. 
Imagine Jonathan Slick discoursing in a caressing tone 
to some good-sized foreigner, trying to make English 
easy to him by calling him "Georgy porgy," and ask- 
ing him, "Does the ittle manny panny wanty eaty in 
the housy pousy to-day ?" Communications thus ex- 
pressed usually set us a laughing, whereupon Father 
Pipelet got helpless with embarrassment, and ended 
by popping out of the room with the confused hurry 
of a roasted chestnut jumping out of the ashes. This 
nursery style of conversation, by the way, is sometimes 
used by the Syrians in talking to missionaries who are 
not yet well posted up in Arabic. 

Neuville and I made a tour of inspection among the 
Parisian eating-houses, from the lowest to the highest, 
commencing with an extravagant repast at the Trois 
Freres. We next devoured our way through the 
middling restaurants of the Palais Royal, paying two 
francs for a dinner of four courses with vin ordinal?^ 
or two and a half francs for the same with a half bottle 
of Chablis. But there were too many people in these 
establishments — too much uproar and too scant serv- 
ice; the beef was tough also, and had a flavor which 
reminded us more of omnibuses and city pavements 
than of plows and green pastures. Notwithstanding 



DINNERS AND DINERS IN PARIS. 183 

such disagreeable premonitions of the style of gas- 
tronomy to be found in the inferior eating-houses, we 
resolved to see the bottom, and went on in our explo- 
ration until we had satisfied or disgusted our appetites 
cheek by jowl with the Housemen. The cheapest 
foraging place that we found was a little shop not far 
from the Post-office, where for two sous we got a bowl 
of cold rice and milk, seasoned with powdered sugar, 
giving an extra sou for a supplementary roll of bread. 
This dish was really so good that I continued to favor 
the place with occasional visits, until I heard some 
horrible stories about the nature of the milk to be 
found in such inexpensive localities, in consequence 
of which relations, not wishing to load my stomach 
with too much chalk and calf's brains, I gave up rice 
and milk for a season. 

In an obscure back court a little way from the 
Palais Koyal there was a small eating-house at which 
a table d'hote was served for one franc a head, with 
five sous additional for a dessert. The table-cloth 
was always rich with great stains of soup and wine ; 
the furniture was of unpainted wood, and of the coarsest 
fabric ; the room was lighted by dim windows, or still 
dimmer lamp flickers. The customers were a grade 
or two above Housemen, and seemed to be master 
mechanics, shopkeepers from both city and country, 
clerks, poor lawyers, and small authors. At five 
o'clock a skinny waiting-maid entered from the kitch- 
en and delivered the programme of the forthcoming 
meal in a nasal, monotonous tone, undisturbed by the 
slightest punctuation. " There is to-day bean-soup 
boiled mutton ham and cabbage also a dessert of 



184 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

cheese and raisins or of orange preserves." As usual 
in French dinners, half a bottle of wine was furnished 
gratis, but it was sour enough to draw squeals from a 
Hindoo saint or a Pawnee brave/ 

The worst fare that we found was in the Quartier 
Latin, at a table d'hote much frequented by students. 
In the first place, the barley-soup very nearly turned 
us out of doors by its burnt and stale odor. Then 
came a dish which absolutely confounded our zoologi- 
cal knowledge. It was not beef, it was not veal, nor 
mutton, nor hare, nor chicken, nor any thing that we 
had ever tasted before. It was too large-boned to be 
of feline extraction, and we shuddered as we question- 
ed whether it might not be mastiff or spaniel. One 
mouthful was enough ; and, paying our dues, we de- 
parted. I believe that it was this adventure which 
disgusted us with culinary investigations. We final- 
ly settled down on the restaurants of a middle class, 
something better than the JSIille Colo?ines, and not so 
showy as the Trois Freres, but in which we could 
command for three or four francs a bottle of the best 
vin ordinaire and a most excellent dinner. 

We took a great affection to the Cafe Jouffroy, and 
during a long time haunted it regularly in pursuit of 
our breakfasts and after-dinner coffees. It faces on 
the Boulevard Poissonniere, while its side doors open 
into the Passage Jouffroy, one of those fine glass-roof- 
ed arcades, like small crystal palaces, which so brill- 
iantly vary and adorn the promenade scenery of Paris. 
Here it was pleasant to walk in the cool or rainy even- 
ings, watching the shoals of loungers who drifted up 
and down the passage, or staring into the elegant lit- 



DINNERS AND DINEES IN PAEIS. 185 

tie shops which lined it. The three saloons and the 
numerous marble tables of the cafe were occupied even 
to crowding at evening by scores of young men, old 
men, ladies even, or what purported to be such, all 
playing eagerly at dominoes, chess, and draughts, or 
chatting vociferously over cafe noi?% ices, and punches. 
One particular corner was generally filled by a knot 
of old fellows, respectably-dressed men of sixty or sev- 
enty — worn-out beaux, I imagined — who played domi- 
noes with indefatigable interest, and occasionally quar- 
reled outrageously over that insignificant amusement. 
At eleven o'clock their nurses or housekeepers came for 
them, and hurried them home with a tyrannical punc- 
tuality which was extremely amusing. " Alive ridic- 
ulous, and dead forgot," I could not help repeating, aft- 
er Pope, as I contemplated this infantile close to what 
had been most probably the good-for-nothing life of a 
bachelor idler. 

We sometimes patronized the middling hotels of 
Paris, taking pains to select those which were not fre- 
quented by Americans and Englishmen. At one of 
these tables d'hote, where we oftenest dined, there was 
a jovial set of boarders, among whom we easily made 
acquaintances, and passed a convivial hour pleasantly. 
At the head of the table usually sat a Greek, an un- 
lucky gentleman, who had come to Paris to obtain the 
discharge of some relative from the army of Algiers, 
and who thus far, as I privately heard, had only suc- 
ceeded in discharging all the money from his pockets. 
Opposite us sat a round, jolly Austrian baron, who ate 
fearful quantities of mustard, and laughed himself crim- 
son in the face over sly hints and broad stories hardly 



186 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

choice enough to be repeated. On my right was an 
old French captain, long since retired from service, an 
endless narrator of anecdotes, and as garrulous as a 
bobolink. Farther down were three young English- 
men, robust clerks from London, gravely disputing 
whether they could possibly get drunk on vin ordi- 
naire, and concluding that humanity was unable to 
swallow enough of it to produce that delightful result. 
The captain talked fluently and enthusiastically on 
elegance of manners, which was a kind of religion in 
his estimation, or at least constituted no small part of 
respectability. "Helas !" said he ; " it is almost lost 
from France ; our young men show nothing of it ; they 
behave like a set of commis-voyageurs (traveling clerks). 
Manner is a great art, Monsieur ; almost a nature, in 
fact ; a man must acquire it so early that you may say 
it was born with him. Let him grow up without it, 
he never seizes it, no matter what society he keeps, 
and you can detect him for a native boor the moment 
he enters a drawing-room. Yes, Monsieur, a man 
must be born to society, or he can not be worthy of 
it ; he must have it in his blood, as it were." 

" But Beaumarchais ?" I said. 

" Beaumarchais ! ah ! Beaumarchais ? Eh ! well, 
that creature had infinite wit, but he was no gentle- 
man ; after all, Monsieur, he was no gentleman." 

The captain was so evidently a relic of old times 
and old manners in France that he interested me great- 
ly. He had a polished and elaborate courtesy of ad- 
dress, united to a jovial lightness, almost levity of 
thought, altogether like what I had imagined of the 
men who bowed and gossiped in the saloons of Paris 



DINNERS AND DINERS IN PARIS. 187 

before Louis XVI. mounted the scaffold. Traces of 
great beauty remained in his face, features of feminine 
delicacy and regularity, a color still florid, and dark 
hazel eyes, not yet greatly dimmed by more than 
eighty years of battle, exile, and perhaps poverty. He 
had been a refugee in England subsequent on the fall 
of the old monarchy, and, under the Duke of York, 
had fought for the ancien regime against the armies of 
the Convention. 

One of his campaigning reminiscences introduced a 
subject to which I have heretofore distantly adverted. 
" I have often eaten horseflesh when nothing else was 
to be had," said he, "and I must tell you that the 
common prejudice against it is an injustice." 

" How ! was it so good ?" I asked. 

" Eh ! well, not particularly good, perhaps ; but, 
then, why was it not good ? Not because the meat 
itself was bad, but because we prepared it badly. Be- 
hold me, for instance, on the field of battle, the bag- 
gage-carts several miles in the rear, but mangled 
horses lying all around me. I cut a fine slice from 
one of them ; but how am I to cook it ? The best I 
can do is to stick it on a bayonet and hold it in the 
fire. It gets smoked, and there is neither salt nor 
sauce. When it is scorched on the outside, I must 
eat it, although it is raw within. You can under- 
stand, from all this, why soldiers rarely find horse- 
flesh to their taste. But let it be of good quality, and 
properly cooked, and I promise you it would be excel- 
lent eating." 

" Precisely, Monsieur le Copitaine" said the baron, 
who had been listening attentively from his side of the 



188 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

table. "Horseflesh is good. We eat a great deal 
of it in Vienna ; not under the pretense of beef, as it 
is eaten here, but horseflesh in good faith, sold by its 
proper name. If you should go to Vienna again," he 
added, turning his spectacles upon me, "you must try 
some of it. But let me advise you not to touch the 
soup. The steak is fair ; the roast is excellent ; but 
the soup is worth nothing — absolutely nothing," he 
repeated, with a grimace of grave contempt. 

"Possibly they do not prepare it rightly," said I, 
with a seriousness suitable to the importance of the 
topic. "I am acquainted with a gentleman named 
Count de G , whom I met at a hydropathic insti- 
tution. He gave me some delightful information on 
this very subject. Traveling by diligence in the south 
of France, he met an individual who proved to be the 
agent of a flourishing establishment where thousands 
of old horses are annually turned to the most valuable 
philanthropic purposes. Not a particle of the animal, 
according to this gentleman, is thrown away as un- 
servicable. The bones are converted into blacking; 
the blood affords Prussian blue ; the skins are useful 
for various purposes ; a portion of the carcass is boil- 
ed to grease ; the coarser residuum produces manuring 
substances ; the steaks are excellent ; and the soup — 
oh, mon Dieu ! the soup is delicious. The agent 
actually smacked his lips and rolled up his eyes at the 
recollection of that exquisite jpotage" 

All this while our landlord stood behind the baron's 
chair, scratching his round head in a fidgety anxiety 
to introduce some remark of his own. " Yes, gentle- 
men, yes," he broke in at the first pause, u there is a 



DINNEES AND DINEES IN PAEIS. 189 

great deal of horsemeat eaten, and here in Paris too. 
Why, I have it from one of the officers of the Oc- 
troi that three hundred pounds of it are imported into 
the city every day. All this comes in as horseflesh ; 
it pays duty as horseflesh ; it is sold as horseflesh ; 
and it is horseflesh. Then, as to the quantity smug- 
gled in and eaten for beef — oh, mon Dieu ! nobody 
knows how much that is." 

I will just observe that these statements were all 
made in good faith, and that I consider their truth 
highly probable, if not certain. After all, was not the 
conversation just as absurd, to the true cosmopolite, 
as would be a discussion between three or four Hin- 
doos as to whether beef could possibly be used as an 
article of human diet ? 

The baron was an old bachelor, but so fond of the 
other sex that it was a marvel how he had escaped 
marriage. If a woman of at all passable exterior ap- 
peared at our table, he was in a fever to commence a 
flirtation with her. He used to joke Neuville and my- 
self on the subject of les affaires du cwur with fanat- 
ical perseverance, eating, talking, and laughing all to- 
gether until he was scarlet in the face with mustard 
and merriment. 

Like almost all Germans, he was passionately fond 
of music. He seemed to hold great composers and 
singers in about as much reverence as great poets and 
orators. He told me, with some pride, that a country 
house of his father's once had the honor of covering, 
for several months, the head of the immortal Beetho- 
ven. " He was quite deaf at the time," said the bar- 
on, putting his forefingers to his ears in expressive 



190 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

gesticulation ; "but he still composed, lie still thought 
out his harmonies, although he could not hear the 
sound of an instrument. He had the air of a man 
possessed, for he walked about in a perfect abstraction, 
waving his hands and muttering bom, bom, bom, bom. 
I was very young then, but I well remember his looks, 
for my father used to point to him and say, ' My son, 
you are a little boy now, but as long as you live you 
must never forget that you have seen that great man, 
the immortal Beethoven.' " 



FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 191 



CHAPTEK XVIII. 

FLOEENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 

Florence! I seldom hear the word without at 
least a faint semblance of that emotion with which a 
man hears the name of the mistress of his heart. For 
me, no other precinct of this earth verdures so green- 
ly in memory, or beams so brightly in the sunlight of 
imagination, or has made me love it so when I can 
hardly tell why. There seemed to be an affinity with 
me in its very air, an interest like that of recollection 
in all its scenery, as though my spirit had been born 
there in other centuries, and had possessed there long- 
ago a country, a history, love, joy, sorrow, and death. 
I have seen otherwheres climates more serene, land- 
scapes more Eden-like, palaces more magnificent, art 
equally glorious, and women as beautiful, yet never 
have I met in any other spot all these things blended 
so evenly, and forming a whole so unmarked by any 
gross deficiency. If there be any assignable cause 
for the fascination which Florence exercises over al- 
most every man of susceptible feeling, it is this union, 
so nearly complete, of a beautiful nature in all its ele- 
ments with a beautiful art in all its forms. And add- 
ed to this splendor is a history full of the finest hu- 
man interest, fragrant with a breath of genius such as 
perfumes the walls of no other modern city. Who 
that walks in Florence shall forget the visions of 
Dante, and the love of Petrarea, and the mirth of 



192 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Boccaccio, and the artistic sublimity of Michael An- 
gelo, and the starry glories of Galileo ? 

The breath of Florence seemed to reach me long be- 
fore I came within sight of its domes and campaniles. 
No more grating northern winds, no more half-frozen 
rains pursued me, but a warm whisper of air, as from 
southern seas and drooping tropical palms. When we 
halted at the way-stations of the rail-road which runs 
from Leghorn up the valley of the Arno, the evening 
breeze flowed in upon us from gardens overbrimming 
with the perfume of flowers. The soft tones of the 
Tuscan, a language of nightingales, fell like fairy mu- 
sic on my hearing, all the more entrancing after so 
long a period passed without the circle of its melody. 
In fact, I was drunk with pleasure at finding myself 
again in Italy, and breathed out joyously one of those 
favored hours when earth becomes idealized, and all 
realities put on their halos of poesy, like snowy 
mountains grown warm and rosy with the rich glory 
of sunset. 

The next morning the gray, practical tints of exist- 
ence had resumed empire, and I turned my attention 
to the actualities of Florence. I am not so sentimental, 
thank Heaven ! but that I can generally eat my break- 
fast, and digest it into the bargain. Neuville, an in- 
dividual who, like myself, has a body attached to his 
soul, accompanied me in the spirit of hungry fellow- 
ship to the Cafe Doney. It was just the same thing 
as ever, from the three saloons, the cream-colored col- 
umns, and the marble-topped tables, to the white uni- 
forms of Austrian officers, the easy traveling coats of 
English tourists, and the noisy waiters, rushing about 



FLOEENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 193 

like incarnations of perpetual motion, and shouting the 
orders of the guests with the vehemence of sea-cap- 
tains in a hurricane. Giovanni, the good-natured fel- 
low whose particular duty it was to pour out the cof- 
fee, came up to us with a grin of friendly recognition 
on his face, a huge coffee-pot of welcome in one hand, 
and a hospitable vessel of hot milk in the other. 

" Good-morning to these gentlemen," said Giovan- 
ni. "They are welcome to Florence. I hope they 
have had a pleasant journey. What will they take for 
breakfast?" 

We mentioned our wants : " Two coffees, four eggs, 
and bread and butter!" repeated Giovanni at the top 
of his voice, as if it were important that all Florence 
should know what the two gentlemen were about to 
eat. In response, another waiter soon appeared from 
a back room, bringing all the appurtenances necessary 
to the comfortable devouring of two coffees, four eggs, 
and bread and butter. "Mix!" trumpeted this fel- 
low, now that it was his privilege to roar. "Mix!" 
echoed Giovanni, with the shout of an avalanche, 
thereupon pouring in the correct proportions of coffee 
and milk with the dexterous rapidity of long experi- 
ence. Then both darted away to offer the same bois- 
terous hospitality to other customers, leaving us face to 
face with two coffees, four eggs, and bread and butter. 

" ' Gmsejppe /" shouted Neuville to a long, gaunt 
waiter, who appeared to be made of bean-poles for limbs, 
with a weather-cock for a head. 

" Signore /" exploded Giuseppe, in an astonishing 
ibass voice which would have done honor to a basso 
profondo in a tragic opera. 

I 



194 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

"Galignani" 

"Si, Signore." And away went Giuseppe with the 
movement of a kangaroo, in search of the famous En- 
glish journal of Paris, the instructor and consoler of 
wandering Anglo-Saxons throughout the Continent. 
Giuseppe's voice was a remarkable affair of itself, but 
still more so when compared with the small cubic ca- 
pacity of the carcass in which it dwelt. He made one 
think of an oboe, or a trombone, or any other lengthy, 
slender, and sonorous wind instrument. It seemed as 
if he must be hollow from head to foot to admit of the 
production of such a quantity of sound. He was long 
enough for it, in all conscience, but not half wide 
enough nor thick enough. He was as flat down his 
breast as down his back, and, in fact, rather flatter ; 
for his bust was like a pancake, while his shoulder- 
blades were plainly perceptible. He had no seat to 
his pantaloons, and might have worn that garment 
hind side before without inconvenience, so that it was 
wonderful what he found to sit down upon, unless it 
were the lower extremity of his back bone. His cra- 
nium stuck well forward, like the figure-head of a ves- 
sel, and, being set on a long neck, seemed to appear 
around corners or through doorways a considerable 
season before the arrival of the body, as if, in fact, it 
were migrating about on its own account, and belong- 
ed to nobody in particular. It was trimmed with 
short, black, bristly hair, variegated slightly by gray ; 
was perforated with a mouth of the largest calibre, 
very useful, aside from other purposes, for making grim- 
aces to amuse favorite customers ; and exhibited, by 
way of frontispiece, or, more properly speaking, pref* 



FLOEENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 195 

ace, a lengthy hawk nose, which, not to put too fine 
' a point on it, was usually rather snuffy. Neuville de- 
•clared that he bore a striking resemblance to storks, 
cranes, and that kind of bipeds, and pretended to be 
surprised that Giuseppe did not scream like a heron 
; or boom like a bittern, instead of enunciating melliflu- 
ous Tuscan. 

Presently there waved in the doorway of the cafe a 
broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, perched on the head of a 
full-formed, robust girl of twenty or twenty-two. A 
'face agreeable rather for good-humor than for beauty 
•looked out from under the dancing straw braid, and 
smiled on the new-comers. It was Enrichetta, the 
youngest and prettiest of the flower-girls of Florence, 
bearing on her round, vigorous arm a broad, shallow 
'basket, brimming with little bouquets of exactly a but- 
( ton-hole circumference. Her pulpy lips parted, dis- 
closing a gleam of white teeth, as she advanced with 
an easy, confident air to our table. " Good-day to 
'these gentlemen. How happy I am to see them re- 
turned to Florence ! Will they take some flowers ?" 

Here a dexterous movement of her hand translated 
a couple of nosegays from her basket to our button- 
holes ; and then, scarcely pausing to accept of a small 
piece of silver, Enrichetta passed on with a smile and 
a nod to the next table. I could see that during my 
absence of two years from Florence she had greatly 
improved, not only in dress, but in her style of carry- 
ing herself and presenting her flowers. But there were 
several scars on her chin and throat which somewhat 
marred even her rustic style of beauty ; and I soon 
learned that, about a year previous to this our meet- 



196 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ing, the current of her life had been rippled by a most 
serious adventure. There was an older Jioraia, named 
Erminia, still good-looking, and once, I was told, beau- 
tiful. She spoke a. little tolerable French, some words 
of English also, had a graceful address, and was long 
the public favorite. But Erminia found herself verg- 
ing toward thirty, while Enrichetta was becoming ev- 
ery year a more formidable rival. Jealous both in 
heart and purse, the elder jioraia resolved, with the 
true ferocity of an infuriated Italiana, to deface her an- 
tagonist's beauty, and so drive her out of the market. 
She made use of her husband as an instrument, and 
urged him on to violence in the spirit of a rustic Lu- 
crezia Borgia, The rascal actually assaulted Enri- 
chetta in the cafe, and cut her throat with a pair of 
flower-scissors, as if she were a rose or a marigold, in- 
juring her so severely that she was confined for weeks 
to the hospital. But the triumph of violence was 
short, however sweet, for the Tuscan law, with a sin- 
gular eccentricity, interfered on the right side, for once 
falsifying the joke of the Florentines, who, pointing to 
the statue of Justice on the lofty column in the Piazza 
delta Trinita, are accustomed to tell you that justice 
is out of their , reach. The throat-scissoring rogue 
went to prison, while Erminia was ordered never again 
to enter or pass by the Cafe Doney. This was very 
nearly a death-blow to her business prospects, as it is 
precisely in and about this cafe that genteel loungers 
in Florence, foreign and native, most do congregate. 

Thus, when Enrichetta was able to resume her oc- 
cupation, she found herself queen of flowers in the 
city. There was, indeed, another Jioraia, Giuseppina 






FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 197 

who Lad in her day been the belle of the profession. 
But Giuseppina was now full forty-five years old, and, 
what was even worse, sustained the unpopular reputa- 
tion of being a government spy, having, in fact, been 
nearly lynched as such by the victorious Democrats 
of 1848. Consequently Enrichetta now had a capi- 
tal time ; distributed a profusion of flowers, and got 
well paid for them ; dropped her old awkward timidi- 
ty, and picked up an easy lorettish forwardness ; treat- 
ed herself to a large variety of dresses, woolen, calico, 
or even silk, and filled them handsomely ; was very 
intimate with the Florentine dandies, and joked with 
them in a style altogether too free for translation ; and 
finally, after the fashion of the fiovaie, accepted the 
lucrative addresses of various generous-hearted admir- 
ers. Two of these Corydons were Greeks, both of 
whom had the impertinence to quit Florence after a 
while, in contravention of their vows of eternal fidelity. 
Enrichetta, in consequence, considered herself an in- 
jured woman, and permitted herself the singular freak 
of hating the whole faithless nation. A phil-Hellene no 
longer, she never knowingly gave a flower to a Greek ; 
and it was in vain that an Athenian friend of mine 
once tried to reason her out of the unclassic prejudice. 
His Attic eloquence was useless, and he got no bou- 
quet, nor scarcely even a sulky, unregardful reply. 

I have seen flower-girls in other cities of Europe, in 
Venice and Paris, for example, but none like those of 
Florence. Every where else they sell their flowers ; 
here they have the air of giving them away. If you 
offer them money, they accept it, but they never ask 
for it, and very rarely wait by you as if expecting it ; 



198 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

no, the fioraia of Florence lias better manners than 
that ; she drops a bouquet on your table, or fixes it in 
your button-hole ; then, with a quick glance in your 
eye and a flattering smile, she trips hastily away ; but 
at your departure, while you are stepping into the rail- 
road station or the diligence-office, thinking in the joy 
of a good conscience that all your creditors are satis- 
fied, you suddenly see before you ihv fioraia, smiling, 
wishing you buon viaggio, presenting her final bouquet, 
and awaiting the reward of her floral beneficence. A 
trifling present satisfies her, for you could purchase 
her whole basket of nosegays for half a dollar. Enri- 
chetta was abundantly content when I gave her &fran- 
cescone ($1.04), after having been, for more than two 
months, a pensioned voluptuary on her roses and jes- 
samines ; and I, for my part, willingly paid this small 
tax for the sake of sustaining so pretty and sentiment- 
al an institution as that of the fioraie. What a loss 
would its extinction be to Florence, whose very name, 
as some say, comes from the word^r^, signifying that 
it is the city of flowers ! My button-hole always had 
a nosegay as I paced the Lung' Arno, or rode to the 
Cascine, making me seem, no doubt, like a most lacka- 
daisical trifler to every hard, sensible tourist just ar- 
rived from severe, stony New England. 

And then, O lounger in Florence, if lady friends of 
yours come to the city, what sweetest of welcomes can 
you send them by the hands of these florist messen- 
gers ! Erminia bears them your card in a handsome 
bouquet, and the fragrant compliment only costs a 
paltry half dollar. Indeed, the flower-girls have the 
credit of carrying more than cards ; they are dexterous 



FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 199 

intriguers, men believe, and slip many a forbidden love- 
letter into white trembling fingers. With beautiful 
profusion, too, and at a trifling expense, do they garland 
the balls and wedding-feasts of Florence. Giuseppina 
had the monopoly of such occasions as these, for her 
skill shone pre-eminent wherever large and elaborate 
flower decorations were needed. "Nobody can make 
bouquets like Giuseppina," she said, proudly, showing 
me a ponderous wreath of supreme elegance. This 
veteran fioraia, by the way, had won a little fortune in 
her graceful trade, being possessor of a house and gar- 
den, besides having set off a niece with the respectable 
dowry of six thousand francesconi. 

But I must not sit all day in the Cafe Doney, gos- 
siping about the fioraie. As Giovanni has let out 
what I had for breakfast, he shall tell how much it 
cost me. " Quanto, Giovanni ?" 

" Si, Signore. Coffee, two crazie ; butter, two cra- 
zie ; two rolls of bread, two crazie; two eggs, two 
crazie. Un jpaolo, Signore." 

A crazia, be it known, is worth a cent and a quar- 
ter, so that eight crazie, or one jpaolo, amount to ten 
cents. Having thus breakfasted for a dime in the 
most fashionable resort of Florence, I felt generous, 
and gave Giovanni half a jpaolo, which was such an 
unusual gratuity that he looked puzzled and hardly 
dared take it. In a general way you pay the waiters 
nothing, except an odd crazia or two, given every 
three or four days, and this only when you take break- 
fast or something else which implies the soiling of a 
number of dishes. For a simple cup of coffee or an 
ice, you plank your mezzo jpaolo, and pocket the two 



200 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

odd crazie without the slightest shame. At Paris you 
can not consume the most trifling refreshment respect- 
ably unless you present the garcon with a couple of 
sous. 

Doney's cafe is the only in Florence where the cof- 
fee and butter are almost invariably good. The break- 
fasting-place next in quality and fashion is a cafe-res- 
taurant kept by a Swiss named Wital, known to the 
soft-spoken Florentines by the milder trisyllable Vi- 
tanly. I more than suspected it of being rather dirty, 
yet I often took my morning meal there, partly for the 
sake of an occasional beefsteak and potatoes (not pro- 
curable at the rival establishment), partly for the com- 
pany of Hart, Gait, and two or three other artists who 
favored its rickety marble -covered tables. In fact, 
many American travelers dine there, although they 
could do much better at the restaurants, particularly 
at the one known as the Luna. The place was much 
frequented also by subaltern officers of the Austrian 
garrison, who made an outrageous clatter of German 
consonants over their beer and cigars, contrasting 
strongly with the flowing cadence of the Italians, or 
the low and somewhat nasal tones of us Americans. 

Erminia and Giuseppina rarely came to Wital's, and 
Enrichetta almost never; but the establishment was 
hatefully haunted by a homely old creature, who tried 
to force herself upon a disgusted public as a flower- 
girl. Beggars, also, were too common at Wital's, spoil- 
ing your breakfast with the spectacle of their sicken- 
ing filth and the monotony of their doleful whine, pa- 
trolling the rooms at will, or, when driven out, gibber- 
ing and mowing through the wide windows. 



FLOEENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 201 

As people (I mean leisurely people) rise late at 
Florence, ten o'clock generally came before I had fin- 
ished my breakfast. From that time to five, my ordi- 
nary dinner-hour, it was hard work to get rid of the day 
unless I wrote or studied. There were the galleries, 
to be sure, the churches, with their historical monu- 
ments, and the delightful promenades around the city ; 
but sometimes I was too lazy or too indifferent to be 
interested even in these wonders. However, five o'clock 
always came in one way or another, and then I march- 
ed off to dine, sometimes at the Luna with Gould, 
Tate, and Neuville ; sometimes at Wital's, with Hart, 
Gait, and Jackson. My dinners at the Luna cost me 
thirty or forty cents at the utmost, including a small 
flask of Chiante or Montepulciano wine, equivalent to 
good vin ordinaire in France. The meal over, we 
lounged on the sofas, told stories by the hourful, smok- 
ing meanwhile cigars of Swiss or Italian make, cost- 
ing a cent apiece, and well worth treble the money, as 
cigars go in America. Gould was a capital mimic, a 
first-rate narrator, and had as many tales at his tongue's 
end as the inexhaustible sultana of the Arabian Nights. 
Ah ! reader, those were wonderful dinner-hours, wor- 
thy of your envy. 

The stories out, we lit fresh cigars and set off jo- 
vially for Doney's to settle our digestion with a cup 
of caffe new, that is, strong coffee, sugared, but milk- 
less. It would generally be about dark by this time ; 
but there were days when we dined earlier, or expe- 
dited matters at the Luna, so as to give ourselves op- 
portunity for visiting the Cascine. As Gould was the 
oldest hand in Florence, and knew most thoroughly its 

12 



202 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

prices and its trickeries, he was generally appointed to 
bargain with, a coachman. Three or four Jehus, fur- 
nished with tolerable teams and barouches, generally 
stood in front of Doney's. Now and then one of them 
would nod to us and jerk his hand back, by way of in- 
quiry whether we wanted to drive out of the city. 
Hereupon Gould held up three fingers, signifying that 
he was willing to incur the expense of three pauls for 
the sake of that gratification, to which the Italian in- 
evitably replied by a shrug and a show of seven or 
eight digits. 

" Too much," was our countryman's criticism. 

" Oh no, Signore, not too much. A good carriage 
and horses. Come ; there is music to-day at the Cas- 
cino." 

" Four pauls." 

"I can not; really I can not. Say six pauls, 
/Signore" 

"No, five." 

"No, no, impossible;" and here the fellow usually 
started off with a confident air, as if sure of finding 
greater liberality elsewhere. At the end of a block, 
however, he was pretty certain to make a circuit and 
drive up to the steps again, saying, "Well, Signore, 
give me five pauls and a buona ma?io" (present). 

" No, five pauls and no buona ma?io." 

" Good, Signore ; it is too little, but get in. If I 
drive well, the gentlemen will not grudge me a bottle 
of wine." 

In we got ; a ragged, toothless old fellow shut the 
door in hopes of winning a stray crazia ; two or three 
dirty urchins picked up the stumps of our cigars and 



FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 203 

commenced smoking them; and just as Enrichetta 
flung a trio of nosegays into the carriage, we rolled 
away down the long street leading to the Porta al 
Prato. Policemen and sentries at the city gate made 
no objection to our passing, for they had a faculty of 
divining a man's .destination, and they probably knew 
us by sight. Wheeling to the left, and skirting a 
small suburb, we came upon a straight road shaded by 
trees, and lined on one side by a narrow wood, on the 
other by long green meadows, one of which formed 
the race-ground of Florence. Omnibuses, hacks, and 
stylish family carriages, many of them emblazoned 
with noble family arms, and decorated behind with mi- 
litia generals in knee-breeches, rattled before and be- 
hind us over the hard, even macadam. A tide of pe- 
destrians, men, women, and children, flowed along the 
pathways under the shadows of the green branches. 
To the right lay an Italian Eden, tilled to perfect beau- 
ty, rich in mulberries and vines, dotted with farm- 
houses and villas, rising rapidly into verdurous hills, 
and closing far away in the rough mountains of the 
Lunigiana. To the left, parallel with our road, al- 
though unseen from it, rolled the Arno. Beyond the 
Arno, visible here and there through openings in the 
foliage, reposed low yet varied eminences, which were 
almost human in their mild loveliness of expression. 
One green hill there was, especially, softened in its 
contour by numerous oaks, sympathetic with humanity 
by its convent and cypressed cemetery, which seemed 
in its touching grace like a Mater A?nahilis, though 
browed with the leafy diadem of earth instead of a 
golden seraphic halo. 



204 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

The gray-headed Grand-Duke, accompanied by his 
wife or his infirm sister, met us in an elegant carriage ; 
an unfortunate, helpless Grand-Duke, never cheered 
and seldom even courteously saluted by his sullen, 
contemptuous subjects. A straight course of nearly a 
mile brought us to an open square, faced on one side 
by a ducal country house, and on the other by a prom- 
enade abutting on the Arno. Rapidly making the cir- 
cuit of the piazza, our coachman drew rein at last 
among the scores of carriages which nearly choked up 
the broad space in front of the villa. A ring of music- 
stands already occupied one portion of the square, and 
around them clustered the white uniform coats of one 
of those magnificent Austrian military bands, unques- 
tionably the finest in the world. Within the circle, 
glancing watchfully over his sixty or seventy sub- 
ordinates, stood the broad-chested, martial- browed 
leader. 

A few premonitory beats, and the sublime chorus 
of instruments rolled grandly into one of the finest 
passages of Verdi's passionate opera, the Trovatore. 
Oh, such music as then rose through the trembling 
leaves of the surrounding trees, and floated away on 
strong wings of harmony over the ripple of the Arno ! 
The restless ebb and flow of pedestrians ceased, and 
the crowd gathered like a sea of living, listening si- 
lence around that island of melody. Through all the 
finest strains of the opera ; through its love, jealousy, 
rage, tenderness, hope, and despair ; through the long- 
ing, dying love-song of the Troubadour ; through the 
awful miserere which shrouds his life in doom; through 
the last fragile melody at the close, which regretfully 



FLORENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 205 

echoes of lost liberty and happiness, the wild instru- 
ments wandered with a wonderful power and flexibili- 
ty of emotion. The story unfolded again before us as 
we had heard it on the stage from Albertini, Boccarde, 
and Graziani, swelled through all its tempestuous, 
changeful feeling, and sunk into silence under the last 
beat of the leader's hand. 

The flow of pedestrians around the grassy circle re- 
commenced, the hum of conversation and laughter 
burst out with fresh vivacity, carriages started from 
their posts and made the tour of the square to gain 
some more favored spot. After a pause of five min- 
utes the band struck up a lively waltz to alternate 
with the sadness of the opera. Thus, on the pinions 
of music, an hour or two slipped away, until the dim- 
ness of twilight sent the thousands of spectators and 
listeners back to Florence. 

If the music ended early enough, we sometimes took 
a sunset drive to the extremity of the Cascine, where 
it is closed by a little brook which empties into the 
Arno. The whole length of this beautiful promenade 
must be a mile and a half, shaded every where by the 
same continuity of elms, and faced by an unbroken 
succession of meadows. There is a road on the bank 
of the river, another leading longitudinally through the 
park, and another along its northern outskirt. Pedes- 
trians are plentifully accommodated with paths and 
with stone benches. In short, the Cascine of Florence 
is one of the most delightful public resorts in the world, 
and with the addition of its bands of music, its crowds 
of carriages, and its thousands of loungers dressed in 
their holiday suits, is incomparable, not for vastness 



206 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

or magnificence, but for gentle beauty and quiet gay- 
ety. 

When I was at Florence, the music days of the 
Cascine came four times a week, the great occasion 
being Sunday. The Austrian bands alternated with 
the Tuscan ones, no contemptible rivals. Cascine, by 
the way, simply means pastures, and the ducal villa 
which I have mentioned is simply an elegant dairy. 

PICTURES. 

BEATRICE. 

Her life is warm 

With cherished duty ; 
Her soul and form 

Contend in beauty. 

She heeds no lure 

Of idle pleasure ; 
Her thoughts are pure, 

Her words a treasure. 

She smiles upon 

The poor and saddened ; 
Their hearts are won, 

Their faces gladdened. 

She bends her knee, 

A saintly maiden : 
Her grave shall be 

A' gate to Aidenn. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

A Pharisee and a Sadducee 
Were reconciled that morning, 

And wagged their heads with wicked glee 
At Christ in his bloody scorning. 

A soldier from the cohort rushed, 
And struck in pagan fury ; 



FLOEENCE AND ITS CASCINE. 207 

The blood and water mingling gushed : 
" Save thyself, O King of Jewry !" 

The frightened dead disturbed the noon ; 

The light of heaven diminished ; 
The earth and sea, the sun and moon 

Heard a voice cry, "It is finished!" 



208 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTEK XIX. 

CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 

My life at Florence was a pattern which I would 
humbly propose to the imitation of all loungers in the 
Tuscan capital. I shall speak of it at some length, 
as it was admirably adapted to the climate, suitable 
to my profession of doing nothing, and most truth- 
fully characteristic of the sauntering population by 
which I was surrounded. The Arno sliding down its 
long, rich valley, the sunshine sleeping at monstrous 
length on the vineyard slopes, were not more regally 
lazy than I, nor enjoyed a more sybaritic luxury of 
tranquillity. To this luscious far niente I was nota- 
bly incited by the example of my friend Neuville, who 
confessed to being one of the most indolent men ever 
raised in Virginia — a state of which Governor Wise, 
or some other equally impartial authority, has observed 
that the only industrious animal which it contains is 
the tumble-bug. 

There were whole weeks during which Neuville and 
I scarcely ever did any thing more violent than pull 
on our boots or smoke a hard-drawing cigar. We got 
up at ten, spent a full hour in dressing, and reached 
the Cafe Doney early enough to finish breakfast and 
read Galignani before noon. By the time these labors 
were over, it was quite too hot to walk except on the 
shady side of the street, for the sky which now lay 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 209 

above us was the calm, rainless, cloudless, effulgent 
blue of the Florentine late spring and early summer. 
But we sometimes went down the Via Tornabuoni, 
slowly, very slowly, and, making a turn to the right, 
entered the vast, solemn quietude of the Duomo. 
Marble floors and lofty vaultings here welcomed us 
with such a delightful coolness that we could not but 
sit down on the benches, to inhale, as it were, the 
delicious shadows, and repose our wearied strength, 
staring the while at a troop of lazy, white-robed priests 
loitering through some incomprehensible service. 

A quarter of an hour in the Cathedral refreshed us 
sufficiently to enable us to traverse the Via Calzaiuoli, 
pass the Piazza Gran-Duca, and reach Neuville's rooms 
in the Via Porta Eossa. On the way we halted beneath 
the graceful arches of the Mercato Nuovo, and bought 
strawberries, or some of the gigantic cherries of Pis- 
toria, as big as English walnuts, for our afternoon lunch. 
Neuville's lodging consisted of two most comfortable 
first-story rooms, with a cool northward front, costing 
him only seven dollars a month, furniture and service 
included. I had been less fortunate in my selection, 
for, although I had large chambers, they were unpleas- 
antly heated by the sun, and thus we generally passed 
our mornings in the Via Porta Rossa. If it was very 
warm, we partially undressed, and reposed on the sofas 
in a costume which was certainly picturesque, classic, 
and comfortable — smoking meanwhile, talking lazily, 
reading a little Italian, and so slipping almost uncon- 
sciously through the soft hours of breezy summer day. 
The chief drawback to our languid enjoyment of this 
Castle of Indolence was a persevering tinker right 



210 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

across the narrow street, who would not lie down and 
take the world easy like ourselves, but profaned the 
tranquil June air with a remorseless hammering on his 
complaining kettles and saucepans. 

At two or three o'clock the fat landlady brought our 
fruit, which had been cooling itself in a mighty bowl 
of water. Pistoria beats the world in cherries, and the 
strawberries, pears, plums, and grapes of Florence are 
excellent. The Tuscan watermelons are not better 
than those of New England, and quite inferior to the 
same fruit in our Southern States ; as for the musk- 
melons and apples, the less said on such dry subjects 
the better. Ever since my return I have been sorry 
that I did not eat more grapes while I was in Europe. 
The grape of Italy is about the same thing with that 
of Syria, equally firm, thin-skinned, and tender, equally 
removed from our native American production, with its 
tough cuticle and its bullet of seeds within, only fit to 
shoot alligators. I also regret, by the way, that I did 
not attempt to see the process of wine-making in France 
and Italy. In Syria, the manufacture of extracts from 
the vine is not an agreeable spectacle. I have before 
my eyes at this moment a vision of six unwashed Arabs 
standing in an enormous vat of grapes, their loose trow- 
sers tucked up to their hips, and their sinewy legs spat- 
tered with the precious juice, while a dozen brown feet 
stamped in unison among the crushed piles of oozing 
fruit. My brother, the Hakeem, saw one individual 
performing this labor with a running sore on his ankle ; 
saw another leap out of the vat, rush across a dirty yard, 
and then resume his occupation without so much as 
scraping his soles. There are advantages, to be sure, 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 211 

in the system : it does not express the acrid juice of 
the stems into the wine ; it cleanses the operator's feet, 
and comfortably softens his corns. 

It was unfortunate for my grape experience in Eu- 
rope that, during the four years of my residence there, 
the vine disease prevailed, seriously injuring the crop 
almost every where, and in some places destroying it 
entirely. Thus the raw fruit itself was scarce, its 
products were high, and some species of wine nearly 
disappeared from the market. This was a terrible 
affair to the poor peasantry, for the grape is one of 
their most profitable harvests, while wine they con- 
sider a prime necessity of life. Doctor Zanetti, one 
of the best physicians in Italy, set himself to search- 
ing out a substitute, and actually produced the novelty 
of rum and water, which was heralded about Florence 
as a wonderful discovery. 

"Well, in such talk as this, five o'clock finally came 
in a very lazy way, as if it didn't care whether it ever 
got there or not, and then, dressing, we sallied out to 
dinner. At the Luna we passed a pleasant hour, thanks 
to the very endurable kitchen of that establishment, as 
well as to the company of Gould and other good fel- 
lows whom we generally met there. Then came the 
cup of coffee at Doney's ; then the drive to the Cas- 
cine in the cool twilight ; then an ice and another ci- 
gar at Doney's. After this we walked about the city, 
or repaired to Wital's to talk with Hart, Eead, Tait, 
Sumner, Millard, and the other habitues of that social 
rendezvous ; or we took seats on the wooden benches, 
which in summer nights were ranged on both sides of 
the beautiful Carrara Bridge, and looked at the clear 



212 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

evening skies, the long lines of palaces, and the dark 
river rippled with lamplight and moonlight ; or, if 
we wanted some more passionate amusement, we re- 
paired to the Cocomero for a comedy, or to the Per- 
gola for an opera and a ballet. By twelve o'clock we 
generally considered the day creditably improved, and 
went home to bed. However warm the sunlight had 
bean, the nights were cool and refreshing ; for always 
at midnight a quiet air stole down from the Apen- 
nines, and breathed over the city its reposeful benedic- 
tion. 

Yes, Florence was the only place where I ever thor- 
oughly enjoyed a life of supreme laziness. For the 
sake of my good name in industrious Yankeedom, I 
will add that I was not thus indolent all the while. 
As at Paris, I made some use of the public libraries, 
and translated English copiously into the language of 
the country. At one time, with the aid of Minuti, my 
Italian teacher, I commenced rendering Hawthorne's 
House of the Seven Gables into Tuscan, an editor of 
Florence having agreed to publish the same in the 
feuilleton of his weekly journal. A more difficult 
style to reproduce in an idiom of Latin origin could 
hardly be found, I presume, in our Anglo-Saxon. The 
choice epithets and metaphysical ideas of thePyncheon 
family's history stumbled us to such a degree that we 
could only make out about three pages a day ; and, 
after finishing three chapters and part of a fourth, the 
work fell through in consequence of my departure from 
Florence. In fact, it was a little beyond our capaci- 
ties, for I was by no means a master in the graces of 
Italian composition, while Minuti, a good prose writer 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 213 

and something of a poet in liis own language, could 
hardly speak a comprehensible word of English. 

At the Cafe Doney I used to meet, besides my Amer- 
ican friends, a number of European acquaintances, 
young fellows of various nations, Englishmen, French- 
men, Italians, and even Greeks. The foreigners were 
commonly artists, or, like myself, travelers and loung- 
ers. The natives were some of them artists also ; 
some of them members of the Grand-Duke's " Noble 
Guard ;" others young advocates, or holders of small 
offices under government. 

One of the most characteristic specimens of Euro- 
pean youth in the set was a Frenchman, whom I shall 
call Viardot. He was only eighteen, but quite ma- 
tured ; a slender, well-built, easy, lounging lad, as in- 
dolent as possible, a little conceited also, yet decided- 
ly clever. He pretended to be a painter, but he never 
painted more than once to my knowledge, and the re- 
sult on that occasion was something too bad for a clock- 
face. In fact, he was too idle to accomplish any thing, 
being one of that multitude of young fellows in Europe 
who seem born to the vagrant go od-for-n aught exist- 
ence of butterflies. I used to meet him at all hours 
of the day in the cafes and promenades, when he would 
salute me with his good-humored smile, yawn immod- 
erately, and declare, " Je irfenmde horriblement /" 
after which he proceeded to talk voluminously, until 
I was obliged to leave him again to his fearful lassi- 
tude. 

But there was one occupation in which all his indo- 
lence left him, and he was capable of showing extra- 
ordinary zeal, perseverance, and activity. This was a 



214 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

flirtation, or, rather, an intrigue, for in Europe flirta- 
tion usually takes a serious and practical character. 
In affairs of this sort he exhibited an audacity and dex- 
terity really astonishing in so young a practitioner. 
He generally had three or four amoratas at once, in 
different grades of society, from countesses to milli- 
ners, so that his time and affections might not be en- 
tirely wasted, but find their reward in one place, if not 
in another. 

At one time he took a great fancy to a pretty, rosy- 
cheeked, hazel-eyed little lady, whom I often saw walk- 
ing the Cascine with her husband, a respectable mer- 
cer. He followed her about the promenades for a few 
days, made love to her with his eyes, and discovered 
her residence by tracking her home of a Sunday even- 
ing. He next bribed the rascally old housemaid to 
inform him of her mistress's hours, and promise him 
admission whenever he should call. One evening I 
met him at the cafe sucking the head of his cane with 
an air of baffled disconsolateness. 

"Well," said he, "I have made the assault." 

"What assault?" 

" Why, upon the lady I told you of the other day 
— the wife of the shopkeeper. I have been to see her 
at her house." 

"Indeed! How did she receive the compliment ?" 

" Oh, badly — very badly. She was not at all flat- 
tered by it. She sent me away broken-hearted, as 
you see." 

"You do not mean to say that you actually went 
to her house without being introduced ?" 

"But yes. But certainly. Listen, and I will re- 



CEETAIN FLOEENTINE LOUNGEKS. 215 

late you the whole affair. You remember I told you 
how I had bribed the housemaid to let me in. Eh ! 
well, I am not the man to back out ; and I was there 
this afternoon, for my bad luck. I knew that the hus- 
band was in his shop, and that my beauty was at 
home. I halted and rang. My old ugliness came. 
'Is your mistress alone?' I asked. 'Yes.' 'Eh! 
well, go up stairs,' I said, 'and tell her there is a 
French gentleman at the door who does not speak a 
word of Italian, and you can not understand him ; ask 
if he shall be shown up.' I let drop a few more pauls 
into her hand, and she went off, the old image of sin! 
Presently she reappeared at the top of the stairs, and 
beckoned me to mount. I was up in two bounds, and 
found myself at the door leading into the saloon. For 
a moment my heart was in my throat, and I felt tempt- 
ed to go back. ' But come, Yiar dot,' I said to myself. 
' The devil ! this will never do. You never will be a 
ladies' man, at this rate.' I composed myself and en- 
tered. The lady was alone. I apologized for my in- 
trusion, and then declared my passion before she could 
get over her first embarrassment." 

" You amaze me. What return did the lady make 
to your immense devotion ?" 

"What return! Oh, the usual rigmarole. She 
said she must not listen to me ; she said I must go ; 
she said her husband would be home soon ; she said 
I must never hope to see her again ; and, what was 
worse, she held to it, and would not even let me kiss 
her hand. Yes, my dear, after twenty minutes' hard 
pleading, I had to give the matter up, and descend the 
stairs with the consciousness that I had been jumping 
after grapes too high for me." 



216 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

" Of course, you drop the affair now altogether." 

" Of course not. Why ? A man never should con- 
sider himself beaten by a first repulse. I shall get 
my friend Cruzon to present me in form ; I have just 
discovered that Cruzon knows the family well. I 
shall then have free access to the house, and shall pro- 
ceed more deliberately. I shall pretend great peni- 
tence and remorse, and after a while I shall renew my 
attack." 

He actually followed out this plan, at least as far 
as the introduction was concerned. But this pretty 
lady was immovable in her integrity; all Viardot's 
simulated sorrow and renewed assaults availed noth- 
ing. 

Another singular companion was Buonacosta, a clerk 
in the bank. Entering the cafe, he would sit down to 
his ice-cream with a disconsolate air, complaining that 
he was the most unfortunate, the most tantalized man 
in the world. " So many millions passing through 
my hands, and not a single million for me ! How is 
it in your country?" he continued, turning to me. 
" Could I find a stray million there, by any chance?" 

" Perhaps you might, my friend, if you could per- 
suade a rich girl to marry you." 

" Oh, exactly. So you have heiresses — female 
millionaires ? Are there many of them ? Could I 
come at one easily ?" 

" Why, there are not so many as to choke up the 
streets ; still, I think I could insure you a girl with 
a small fortune." 

" Oh, I could not think of a small fortune. Noth- 
ing less than a million ! I have set my heart on that 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 217 

little sum, and I must have it, or I shall be a disap- 
pointed man." 

" Well, there is still one remedy. Girls with mill- 
ions are rare, but you could keep on marrying until 
you had got small fortunes enough to make up your 
required million." 

"Yes, and tickle my wives to death as fast as I got 
them, like somebody in the story-book." 

" No, no. That plan is dangerous ; it might put 
your neck in a noose. You would have to keep your 
wives until Heaven was pleased to take them of its own 
accord." 

" But that would be polygamy. Do your laws per- 
mit polygamy?" 

"Precisely. Turn Mormon, and the path is clear. 
You have heard of the Mormons ?" 

" 1 saw an article on them the other day in the 
Journal des Debats" 

"Well, make a Mormon of yourself; go to Utah, 
the Mormon Territory, and you will be allowed to keep 
your wives, and perhaps your money." 

" Oh, trust me for that last affair. I never would 
be so thoroughly converted as to pay out a single era- 
zia for the faith. Well, I like that plan prodigiously. 
It suits all my tastes. Put the wives at a hundred 
thousand each. Ten wives make a million; fifteen 
wives make a million and a half; twenty wives make 
two millions. Do you hear that, Dini, Bartoldi ? 
We will all marry ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty wives 
apiece, if necessary, and then take our wives and our 
millions to settle in Utah. And you, Signor De For- 
est, would you have the kindness to marry forty or 
K 



218 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

fifty wives, and scrape a few millions together, for the 
sake of keeping us company ?" 

"Of course; but I decidedly object to settling in 
Utah. On reflection, I remember that the Prophet of 
the Mormons not only calls on the faithful for large 
allowances of money, but sometimes levies contribu- 
tions of the handsomest females in their families." 

"Is it possible? What a beast that prophet must 
be, to get a man's hard-earned wives and millions away 
from him ! In that case, we will not go to Utah. We 
will go and populate some country — some new coun- 
try. Yes, gentlemen, we will gather our wives about 
us, and go and populate some island or other." 

Such was the style of talk of my gay, burly ac- 
quaintance, Buonacosta. 

The Bartoldi mentioned above was a dapper little 
fellow, a clerk in the post-office, who, on a salary of 
less than one hundred and fifty dollars a year, support- 
ed a very respectable degree of style as a dandy and 
man about town. He may have had some other source 
of revenue, but I always supposed not. Nor did he 
show any of that disposition to borrow money and to 
run in debt at the shops which is so common a failing 
of Young Italy. I fully believe that his little show 
in the way of dress, canes, and an occasional carriage 
was all fairly got out of his one hundred and fifty dol- 
lars by dexterous management and a perfect knowl- 
edge of the markets. 

Indeed, he had no reluctance to let us into the se- 
cret of his economy, and show us where to obtain mer- 
chandise at the cheapest rates. He patronized the in- 
ferior tailors, hatters, and shoemakers ; and as he could 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 219 

bully these poor fellows, he got his things made well. 
He wore a black hat in winter and a white one in 
summer, as well as the richest dandy in town ; but he 
told us that his white hat had served him already three 
years, by dint of being refashioned and redressed every 
spring. His clothes, never of the finest quality, were 
always neat and well-brushed, and his linen scrupu- 
lously clean. Indeed, taking the small expense into 
consideration, I regarded his outward man as little less 
than miraculous for its unspotted tidiness and unpre- 
tending gentility. The only exponent of ostentation 
about him was his cane, a slender, flexile wand of 
some foreign growth, which vastly resembled the rest 
of him in being quite in the style, without costing 
much. 

I never knew where he lodged, and never heard of 
his dining ; but I presume that he had both bed-room 
and dinner of as good a quality as could be got for a 
very little money. He used to appear regularly be- 
fore Doney's at four or five in the afternoon, jerking 
his cane or shaking his fingers at one friend after 
another in the Italian style of recognition, ready to 
promenade with you on the Lung 7 Arno, or to step in 
and take his usual ice or caffe nero. On fcstas or 
Sundays he contrived to muster cash enough to treat 
himself to a drive on the Cascine, or, what was still 
better, he got an invitation into the carriage of some 
more opulent acquaintance. Indeed, I knew by sight 
at least half a dozen young men, habitual haunters of 
Doney's, who never were expected to pay any thing 
in an adventure, as it was well known that they had 
nothing to pay. They seemed to have a prescriptive 



220 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

claim on the purses of their friends to a small weekly 
amount, earning it by their conversation and drollery, 
or by various little acts of obligingness. 

One of my American acquaintances was warned by 
his landlady not to trust his shopping speculations to 
the oversight of these friendly dandies. "I know 
them well," said the suspicious dame; "they pretend 
to bargain for you, but they really let the shopkeeper 
charge you what he pleases ; and he charges you 
more on their account, for he knows that they will 
come upon him for a share." 

Bartoldi spoke French fluently, like most of his set, 
and even had a supportable accent and grammar in 
English. When I came away, he was bent upon 
gaining a literary name, and talked constantly of 
translating English comedies for the Italian stage. 
The difficulty was to find an English comedy, our 
language is so wretchedly deficient in. good- specimens 
of that kind of literature. He read Bulwer a great 
deal, especially his short miscellanies, and occasion- 
ally got out of his grammatical depth in Byron or 
Shakspeare, usually calling upon Gould or me to 
assist him back to daylight. 

Some of the fashionables of Florence seldom spoke 
their own language, always using French, even in con- 
verse with their countrymen. I remember a short, 
stocky, fair-haired count, who never in my hearing 
uttered a syllable of Italian. Another Florentine, 
whom I met on the steamer from Marseilles to Leg- 
horn, puzzled my fellow-travelers and me during the 
first half of our voyage by the mystery which he con- 
trived to throw about his nationality. He was a man 



CERTAIN FLORENTINE LOUNGERS. 221 

of past thirty-five, with a bold, reckless air, yet pol- 
ished and easy, ranging, in short, through all shades 
of manner, from that of a gentleman to that of a rowdy. 
He spoke French only, with singular fluency and pu- 
rity, "but still with a slightly foreign taint. He evi- 
dently comprehended Italian well, and seemed to have 
some knowledge of English ; had resided in Paris, and 
traveled in England, Eussia, Italy, and the United 
States. A Frenchman, an Austrian, and an American 
formed a conspiracy to make this cosmopolite disclose 
his land of birth. The two former sounded him in 
turn by adroit questions and leading observations, 
after which my countryman came out on him bluntly 
in English, hoping to surprise him into an answer. 
All useless. But at Genoa a new passenger, a retired 
Piedmontese officer I believe, recognized our enigma 
as an old acquaintance. The cosmopolite treated him 
with undisguised contempt, abusing his country, laugh- 
ing at his army, and disrespectfully calling the officer 
himself a Wooden Sword. The Piedmontese sought 
revenge in telling us his friend's history ; how he was 
of a good family in Florence; how he was a great 
blackguard ; how he married a large dowry ; how he 
treated his wife so shamefully that the Grand-Duke 
sent him out of the country ; and how he now wanted 
to get back again, and make friends with his govern- 
ment and his outraged spouse. 



222 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 



CHAPTER XX. 

ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 

Some of the most remarkable specimens of humani- 
ty of which I had knowledge in Florence were English- 
men. John Bull has won, all over the Continent, a rep- 
utation for eccentricity which I believe to be pretty 
well merited by the fact. Peculiarities of character 
show themselves in a man abroad much more boldly 
than in a man at home ; for the former considers him- 
self bound by no laws, no customs — neither by those he 
left behind him, nor by those of the land in which he 
is a wanderer. Thus he dresses, talks, and thinks as 
he pleases ; and whoever does this is apt to be worthy 
of notice, if not of recollection. Thus John Bull, who at 
home is more independent in his manners than any oth- 
er person, is doubly so when he finds himself away from 
his countrymen, and beyond the reach of the Times, 

I remember one British haunter of Wital's and Do- 
ney's, whom, as I never knew him personally, I feel 
more at liberty to picture — an Irishman, whose name 
might have been O'Rourke, but was not ; he had once 
worn the epaulets of major in her majesty's service, but 
was now disabled and pensioned. About sixty years 
old, he was quite infirm with wounds and hardship, yet 
still showed a florid face, handsome in feature, but stern 
and hard in expression, with the traces of a fierce, reck- 
less temper. He had fought I do not know how many 
duels, and had been invalided by a shot received in one 



ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 223 

of those honorable absurdities. He used to wander 
from cafe to cafe, leading a little dog now in place of 
a company of grenadiers, and stumping over the pave- 
ment with a peevish, impatient air, as if wrathfully 
contrasting his present infirm step with the burly vig- 
or of his youth. 

I heard him one day telling a friend of his visit to 
the North Star, the famous steam yacht of our enter- 
prising countryman, Vanderbilt. "He's a regular 
Monte Cristo, that man ; he's the raal Monte Cristo. 
There niver was any such fellow as Dumas tells about 
— that's all gammon ; but this is the man. Why, he 
owns a whole fleet of steam-ships ; and this North Star 
is wonderful, the finest thing you iver laid eyes on. 
A rigular Monte Cristo," he repeated, rising painfully 
from his seat, and stumping out of the cafe. 

Major O'Rourke had quarreled with Mrs. O'Rourke 
to such a degree that they finally concluded to divide 
the world between them, she keeping Ireland, and he 
holding undisturbed possession of Italy. In such a 
state of connubial relations, those angel visits, called 
letters, were naturally few and far between. At last 
Mrs. O'Eourke died, and the news came to Italy by 
the journals. A friend of the major happened to ob- 
serve the announcement, and resolved to break the af- 
fair in person to the bereaved husband. He found him 
in his parlor, at his morning toast and coffee, unusually 
ill-humored by reason of some fresh twinges in his legs. 

" Good-morning, major," said the Job's comforter, 
"lam glad to see you looking so well." 

"I am looking a confounded lie, then," growled 
O'Rourke ; " I've got an infernal pain in my knees." 



224 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

u Ah! misfortunes never come single," murmured 
the visitor, taking a seat. No reply being vouchsafed 
to this consolatory reflection, he recommenced, " Major, 
have you seen the papers ?" 

" No ; nothing in 'em. What do I want to see the 
papers for ?" 

"But bad news sometimes comes by the papers." 

" Let it come, and be hanged." 

" I mean personal bad news. You might find some- 
thing in the Galignani of to-day that would touch you, 
major." 

" Not a bit of it ; I defy you. My money's all safe 
— three per cent's — safe as a jail." 

"But you have friends, major." 

"Don't care a button for 'em." 

" But your wife, sir ; suppose that you should hear 
your wife was — " 

" Was what ?" shouted the major, starting forward, 
and dropping his toast and butter in his sudden inter- 
est ; "what d'ye mean? Is the old woman dead? 
Ye don't mean to say the old woman has actually drop- 
ped off?" 

"Yes, major; your wife died three weeks ago." 

"Now, really, you don't mean to say so! Why, 
this is the greatest news I've heard in ten years. 'Pon 
my honor, I'm glad ye stepped in. Take some break- 
fast. So the old plague is really gone, eh? Well, 
well, I'm glad to see ye." 

Such was the manner in which Major O'Eourke 
received the first announcement of his wife's de- 
cease. But the next morning his physician met him 
on the Lung' Arno, wrapped up from head to foot 



ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 225 

in overcoats and comforters, looking particularly dis- 
mal. 

" Why, major, what is the matter? Out of sorts 
to-day r 

" Ah ! doctor, ye've heard of the old woman's drop- 
ping off, eh ? Well, it's worn on me unaccountably. 
Ye're surprised to see me take it so hard, now, I 
know ye are. Well, she was an infernal old plague, 
to be sure, but, after all, she was my wife. We lived 
together like cats and dogs ; but we lived together a 
good while, and it set me aback more than I expected. 
I thought I'd jist take a blue pill and wrap up a little, 
in hopes of carrying it off, ye see." 

The major's idea was perfectly original, and perhaps 
very valuable. If Job had only taken a blue pill and 
wrapped up a little, who knows but that he would have 
got along under his plagues much better than he did ? 
A new rest for the troubled ! a new consolation to the 
afflicted ! 

Punctilious Major O'Rourke leads me to the sub- 
ject of dueling and duelists at Florence. These affairs 
were not uncommon, in spite of the amiable and rath- 
er effeminate character of the people. They generally 
resulted, however, from some jar between natives and 
foreigners, more particularly between the Florentines 
and the officers of the Austrian garrison. It was re- 
markable that when individuals of these two races 
came in armed contact, the Germans were oftener 
worsted than the Italians ; a circumstance which I at- 
tributed to the superior quickness of a southern eye, 
and the greater suppleness of southern muscles. The 
duels were always fought with broadswords, and were 
K 2 



226 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

therefore seldom fatal, although I was told of one which 
occurred at Leghorn, between a Tuscan and Austrian 
officer, in which the latter was killed outright. 

Another encounter, less serious in its consequences, 
took place at Florence between an English artist and 
a Neapolitan duke. The grandee was egregiously 
frightened, and on receiving a cut an inch long across 
the first joint of his right forefinger, fell into the arms 
of his second, exclaiming, "My God! I am a dead 
man." 

A duel in which a good deal of misplaced pluck was 
shown on both sides occurred between a young Pisan 
noble, who may as well be called Santoni as any thing 
else, and an acquaintance of mine named Sergiusti, a 
member of the Grand-Duke's Guardia Nobile. A par- 
ty, it seems, came ofT at Pisa, in which some witty sar- 
casms were dropped by a lady guest concerning the al- 
leged parsimony of Santoni's mother. Sergiusti, great- 
ly amused, repeated them to his friends, who passed 
them on until they reached the ears of young Santoni. 
The indignant youth traced the joke back to its start- 
ing-point, and demanded an apology of Sergiusti. 
The guardsman denied that he was accountable. 

"I know very well," replied Santoni, "that you 
are not the originator of the remarks, but you have 
repeated them. I can not demand satisfaction of your 
lady friend, and I therefore demand it of you." 

"Very good," said Sergiusti; "but give me half 
an hour. I have just got here. You have danced, 
and I have not ; you have had supper, and I have not. 
Give me a waltz and something to eat, then I am 
your man." 



ECCENTEICS AND ECCENTEICITIES IN FLOEENCE. 227 

The Pisan could not refuse so moderate a request. 
The guardsman danced and ate while his antagonist 
looked on. They then repaired to a quiet place, and 
changed their dessert-knives for broadswords. Ser- 
giusti, a boy of nineteen, was no swordsman, and re- 
ceived almost immediately a cut on his neck, which 
came as near as possible to chopping his head off. 
The force of the blow was partly arrested by his par- 
ry, partly by his jaw-bone, but it left him with a huge, 
indelible scar. In addition, the Grand-Duke accorded 
him three months' imprisonment in the old castle back 
of his own palace garden, while Santoni only escaped 
a like reward of merit by hastily leaving the country. 
Native duelists in Tuscany are generally punished by 
imprisonment, and foreigners by expulsion. So much 
for that conventional eccentricity, the duel, as it is 
managed at Florence. 

One of the most original and amusing characters 
who frequented Doney's was a dog answering to the 
title of Burrasco. A long-bodied, short-legged dog he 
was, with a rough black coat, neatly and regularly 
turned up on the belly, breast, and throat with facings 
of yellowish white. Of no distinguished breed, I im- 
agine, or rather of no breed at all, he had more sense 
and drollery about him than any aristocratic dog that 
ever barked out of a coach window or from the cush- 
ion of an embroidered sofa. He had the cunningest 
stand-up ears in the world, with a perfectly irresistible 
way of cocking his head on one side, and looking as if 
he were asking you whether you had such a thing 
about you as a beefsteak or a chicken-wing. He had 
commenced life disadvantageously as a coachman's 



228 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

dog, but had totally discarded Lis plebeian patron, 
and taken to the life of a Florentine gentleman, fre- 
quenting the fashionable promenades, and the most 
stylish cafes and restaurants. In fact, he was one of 
those gifted individuals who push their way up in the 
world from the lowest classes to the highest by dint 
of personal beauty, attractive manners, and native wit. 
He was not the only haunter of Doney's who had done 
this, for I remember a handsome man of twenty-eight, 
whose brother was still waiter in an eating-house at 
Leghorn, but who was himself a Florentine buck, and 
husband of a genteel, well-dowried Florentine lady. 

Like many other Continental fashionables, Burrasco 
slept where he could, which in his case was generally 
on the pavement. But in the morning he always made 
his appearance at Doney's full of spirits, and glad to 
see any body who would oblige him with a slice of 
bread and butter. Breakfast over, he sat on the steps 
of the cafe, played with the other dogs, and barked 
contemptuously at the ragged boys and beggars. It 
is no compliment to get a gratuitous bark from a dog ; 
it is pretty good proof that you are ill-dressed, or have 
something mean or suspicious in your manners. One 
seldom meets a dog in good circumstances who can 
bear poor people ; he usually barks at them, and, if he 
dares, bites them. Burrasco at one time got into such 
a way of assaulting the tatterdemalion urchins of Flor- 
ence, that he had to be repeatedly chastised for his vi- 
olence by long Giuseppe and others, who considered 
themselves responsible for his behavior. 

Toward noon this genteel Italian loafer took a nap 
in the shade, or posted off to a buffet called the Ter- 



ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 229 

razzino, to stay his stomach with a luncheon procured 
from some obliging diner or patronizing waiter. He 
was so well known and such a general favorite that 
his mute requests were always attended to, and I 
doubt whether he passed a hungry hour from morning 
to night. About four o'clock he made his appearance 
at the Luna, galloped up stairs on three legs, and walk- 
ed into the eating-room with a hail-fellow wag of his 
neat and well-curled bushy tail. If any of his inti- 
mates were at dinner, and there happened to be a va- 
cant seat at their table, he forthwith established him- 
self in it, and looked around on the company with a 
self-possessed yet expectant air, as if he had been reg- 
ularly invited, and was only waiting his turn to be 
helped. He finally got so fastidious with good eat- 
ing that he despised bread altogether, and would 
touch nothing which was not meat, or at least soak- 
ed in meat gravy, no matter what fast had been ap- 
pointed. 

The dinner completed, Burrasco went as regularly 
as any of us to Doney's. In addition, he learned the 
music-days, on which occasions, and on no others, he 
treated himself to a promenade on the Cascine. I 
doubt whether he cared a shake of his ears for Norma 
or Louisa Miller, but he listened attentively, with open 
mouth, sitting on his haunches, amusing himself in 
the intervals between the pieces by playing with fel- 
low-dogs, or greeting his biped friends with festive 
bow-wows and capers. When the music ceased, he 
went back to Florence, like every body else, and gen- 
erally spent the evening at Doney's or the Terrazzino. 
In short, from morning to night, year in and year out, 



230 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

his life was so perfectly symbolical of the existence of 
one of those needy, sponging dandies abundant in 
Florence, that it was impossible to see the two to- 
gether, standing side by side, for instance, on the steps 
of Doney's, without being tempted to laughter by the 
ludicrous resemblance. Equally lazy and penniless, 
equally good-hearted, frisky, and toadyish, equally con- 
tented with themselves and worthless to the world, the 
man and dog floated, not swam, down the sunshiny, 
shallow, sluggish current of fashionable Italian life. 
Joy to thee, Burrasco ! thou wert the worthier charac- 
ter of the two in all clear-sighted eyes, human or heav- 
enly. 

There was one species of hospitality, that is, nightly 
lodging, which Burrasco found it difficult to obtain. 
He worked hard for invitations, waiting late at the 
cafe, and then escorting some particular friend home 
with a chorus of barks and a multiplicity of capers. 
Arrived at the door, he sat down and cocked his head 
on one side, as if turning a favorable ear to the desired 
offer of admittance. There he remained until he heard 
the bolt grate in its socket, when he shot off like an 
arrow to reach the cafe before it should be deserted, 
and repeat the same blandishments upon some other 
human intimate. 

He had an amusing way of paying his friends what 
he evidently considered a polite and grateful bit of at- 
tention. Meeting me, for instance, in the street, he 
recognized me with an emphatic wriggle, and then set 
off before me, barking furiously, as if to say, "Here's 
an American friend of mine ; get out of the way, you 
Florentines ; give him plenty of elbow-room, or I'll 



ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 231 

bite you." This complimentary demonstration over, 
he would give me an inquiring look, to see if I were 
quite satisfied, and then canter off about his doggish 
business. 

Burrasco was such a general favorite that even the 
policemen loved him, and neglected to poison him, al- 
though by the terms of the grand-ducal hydrophobic 
law he deserved death, as being a vagrom dog and un- 
muzzled. Long may this true Florentine gentleman 
escape official arsenic and private bludgeons, to enli- 
ven Doney's and the Luna with his jocose bark and 
the kindly wag of his curly tail. 

A curious book might be made out of the blunders 
of travelers on the Continent and the impositions under 
which they suffer. A fine young fellow whom I met 
in Florence, a Virginian, told me of a rascally yet 
laughter-provoking trick which was put upon him by 
one of those guileful coachmen who haunt the paving- 
stones in front of Doney's. Having breakfasted in the 
cafe with a fellow-traveler, he wanted to visit his bank- 
ers, Messrs. Maquay and Pakenham. The two called 
a coachman, and asked him if he knew of the where- 
abouts of the said firm. The cunning rogue professed 
ignorance, and sent a boy to the Hotel du Nord, near 
by, under pretense of inquiring if there were any such 
people in the city. The boy came back with the di- 
rection, as he said, and Jehu, after some haggling, 
agreed to carry them for five pauls, or fifty cents. 
They got in, paid the inevitable beggar for shutting 
the door, and leaned back luxuriously in anticipation 
of an agreeable drive. Coachy turned his horses, 
dvove across the street, and pulled up. There was 



232 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

the door, and there was the sign, Maquay and Paken- 
ham, Bankers. They were indignant, of course, with 
the scamp, called him all the bad names they knew 
in the language, and refused to settle. He quietly ad- 
mitted that the distance was not great, and said, with 
becoming moderation, that, "as they were foreigners, 
he would let them off for three pauls." The joke was 
worth that, and they handed him the money. 

The same friend told me one of his early experi- 
ences in the French language and in a French cafe. 
Having, in the course of human events, swallowed one 
cup of coffee at breakfast, he called for a second. 
"Tout de suite?" (immediately?) asked the waiter. 
" Too sweet ?" said my friend ; " not a bit of it. Bring 
me some more sugar." 

I made a blunder of a different character during my 
first visit to Florence. Neuville and I, anxious to 
learn Italian as fast as possible, resolved to cut all our 
Anglo-Saxon acquaintance, and bury ourselves in 
some society where we should hear nothing but pure 
Tuscan. We concluded that our best place for attain- 
ing this object was to enter a convent — not, indeed, as 
monks, but as boarders. We made pilgrimages to all 
the monastic establishments within ten miles of Flor- 
ence, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Capuchins, 
and all the other chins or shins that we could hear of. 
We rang at the gates, examined the quarters to see if 
they suited our tastes, and then preferred our petition 
for board, lodging, and instruction. The holy fathers 
usually stared as if they thought us demented, but in- 
variably treated us with the utmost politeness. " But, 
bless you, my children," they always replied, in sub- 



ECCENTRICS AND ECCENTRICITIES IN FLORENCE. 233 

stance, "the thing is impossible. The rules of our 
order do not permit such a step. Besides, how could 
you live on our poor fare ? No wine, no meat ; noth- 
ing but bread and vegetables. Oh ! it would never do 
for gentlemen like you." 

And so they folded their hands over their fat bel- 
lies, and blessed us, and sent us away. Our last at- 
tempt was on a rusty, straggling conventual edifice, 
situated on a hill some two miles south of the city. 
We marched boldly through an open front gate, and 
were advancing toward the principal door of the build- 
ing, when the old porter, catching sight of us, ran 
hastily out of his lodge, crying in an excited way, 
" What do these gentlemen want here ?" 

" We want two chambers," said I, briefly. 

"Two chambers!" echoed the old man, flinging up 
his arms in a helpless state of astonishment. 

"Yes, two chambers. We wish to practice Ital- 
ian, and we want company for that purpose. We 
would like to live here, and will pay well for our 
lodgings." 

The porter was speechless by this time, but his wife 
came up, and we referred our modest desire to her. 
The old woman glared upon us a moment, and then 
burst into a cackle of laughter. "Two chambers!" 
said she. " Oh ! Holy Mother ! Oh, God bless me ! 
Two chambers ! Body of Bacchus ! who ever heard 
the like ? No, no, gentlemen," she continued, shaking 
the fore-finger of her right hand at us, after the fash- 
ion of the Italians when they are very positively neg- 
ative, " no, no, there are no chambers here for you, 



234 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 






young fellows. Why, this is a nunnery, gentlemen- 
a nunnery ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 

We backed out of the court in a hurry at this an- 
nouncement, for fear some devout watch-dog should 
be set upon us to avenge our sacrilegious intrusion. 
The adventure, no doubt, got among the sisterhood, 
and probably excited a good deal of horror and merri- 
ment. 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 235 



CHAPTER XXI. 

MARIA AND HER STORIES. 

At the same house where I lived in Florence, on the 
same floor, in a room farther down the passage, lodged 
a girl of eighteen or nineteen, slender, generally pale, 
but with flashing black eyes, and features that were, 
on the whole, rather pretty. She called herself Maria, 
was a native of Sienna, and followed the trade of seam- 
stress. As I saw her nearly every day for over three 
months, we had plenty of opportunities for the ex- 
change of ideas, and I found her an invaluable mine 
of Italian idioms and Italian credences; for be it known 
that Sienna is the place, of all Italy, where the lan- 
guage is the purest ; and not only this, but it is a re- 
tired little city, somewhat away from the great lines 
of travel and thought, so that old opinions and super- 
stitions still possess there a perceptible degree of vi- 
tality. I collected a small museum of ghost frights 
and witch adventures from Maria's conversation, al- 
though such was her timidity and fear of ridicule that 
she would only relate these wonders by dint of being 
delicately coaxed and managed. 

She was the most bashful girl that I ever saw — 
bashful with a kind of nervousness, bashful even to 
disease — and, to the last, she never looked me full in 
the eyes for more than a lightning-like glance. It was 
with her face bent down, so as to be half hidden by its 



236 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

own shadow, or by one hand lifted partially over it, 
that she used to prattle Florentine gossip, or relate her 
astonishing histories. If I looked incredulous, above 
all if I laughed, she would stop and declare, with a com- 
ical pettishness, that she never would tell me another 
word. 

" Witches ? Oh yes, to be sure there were witches. 
Why, her mother had told her how — " and here, catch- 
ing a smile upon my face, she came to an indignant 
stop. " There ! now you are laughing at me. I knew 
you would laugh ; I knew you would not believe it. 
I will not tell you any thing more ; you shall not laugh 
at me." 

" No, no, Maria, I am not laughing now ; tell me all 
about it, perhaps I shall believe it. Just tell me the 
story, and let me see what I think of it." 

Then came a most ridiculous narrative, how her 
mother, when a girl, was very handsome, and thus at- 
tracted the evil eye of an old woman of Sienna, who 
had the name of being a witch. This old woman of- 
fered her mother an apple, and pressed it upon her so 
urgently that, against her better judgment, she accept- 
ed and ate it. Consequently, her mother fell sick, and 
pined away in such a manner as very much astonish- 
ed her relatives, until they learned the adventure of the 
apple, when they immediately understood the cause of 
her illness. Then her father and brothers went to the 
old woman's house, and, surrounding her with their 
knives drawn, said, " Thou hast bewitched our daugh- 
ter and sister, and descrvest to die ; but cure her, and 
thou shalt live, and we will promise secrecy concern- 
ing thy crime." 



MAEIA AND HER STORIES. 237 

So the old woman, in a great fright, went to the 
chamber of the invalid, and anointed her with some 
species of ointment which she caused to "be prepared 
for the occasion ; after which she kneaded her from 
head to foot, as you would knead bread, and so brought 
her out to the family, as smooth, and sound, and hand- 
some as ever. The father and brothers kept their 
agreement of silence until the witch died, when they 
felt at liberty to repeat the tale, which had ever since 
been a current thing at Sienna. 

There was a better story of a poor woman who fell 
partially into the power of Satan through an evil wish. 
The night following this crime of thought, she was 
awaked by a tap on the window, and, looking through 
the glass, she saw a goat which motioned her with one 
of its fore hoofs to come out. She was under the in- 
fluence of some terrible charm, for she neither dared 
wake her husband nor keep her place ; and so, rising, 
she slipped noiselessly through the door, and stood be- 
fore the strangely potent animal. "Wilt thou harm 
Christ's earth or his followers ?" said the goat. 

" I will harm the earth," said the woman, who al- 
ready repented of her sin, and had no desire to injure 
her fellow-creatures. 

" Then mount on my back," replied the goat. The 
woman was so constrained by some mysterious power 
to obey that she instantly bestrode the animal, unable 
to take any other precaution than that of grasping its 
long hair. Immediately the goat went off with the 
swiftness of wind, springing along the bending sur- 
face of the cornfields, leaping from festoon to festoon 
in the vineyards, and galloping madly over the top of 



238 EUKOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

the trees. Wherever his feet struck, they ruined ev- 
ery thing, crushing the grain to earth, tearing the vines 
in pieces, splintering to the roots the strongest olives 
and mulberries. The miserable rider was bruised and 
wounded by the crashing branches, her thin robe torn 
from her in shreds, and her strength exhausted by 
fatigue and terror, until, after an hour of this fearful 
aerial gallop, she was brought back to her own door 
and flung violently from the infernal animal's back. 
There she lay breathless, unable to move, and with a 
fearful enchantment upon her of which even she was 
unaware. 

Morning came, and the husband, not beholding his 
spouse, first called her, then hunted the house over, 
and finally sought her out of doors. He saw a huge 
unsightly toad on the threshold, and indignantly kick- 
ed it into the bushes. No wife being any where dis- 
coverable, he hurried to the neighbors, and told them 
of this incomprehensible disappearance of his rib. Of 
course, the poor man's hearth was soon inundated by 
an assemblage of curious gossips, among whom was 
the pious old priest of the village. As the holy father 
trotted about the house, peeping into the most improb- 
able localities for finding a woman, he happened to 
spy, nestled among the bedclothes, a toad of extraor- 
dinary magnitude — so prodigious, in fact, and so abom- 
inably ugly, that, in his amazement at the sight of it, 
the good man incontinently said a benedicite. The 
moment the sacred words were pronounced, the toad 
changed shape and became the mistress of the house, 
who immediately proceeded, with many tears and faint- 
ing.?, lo tell her lamentable story. She was still dread- 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 239 

fully scratched and pounded from her midnight ride, 
and had a large bruise on her cheek, caused by the 
heavy toe of her husband's shoe, so that they were 
constrained to believe her. The wise father imme- 
diately took all the necessary precautions against a sec- 
ond visit from the devil, blessing the house, sprink- 
ling holy water copiously about the grounds, and hold- 
ing especial service in the parish church that afternoon. 
These vigorous measures were, by the favor of the Ma- 
donna, perfectly successful, and the fiendish goat nev- 
er troubled the family thereafter with his nocturnal 
visits. 

Another of Maria's stories struck me as really pleas- 
ing, and as affording a subject for a pretty night-pic- 
ture. She said that a pious poor man of Sienna went 
into the church of San Francisco to say his evening 
prayers, and, being very tired, sat down on a bench 
against the wall, where he presently fell asleep. The 
vespers ended ; the worshipers passed out ; the sex- 
ton closed the dim church ; yet the sleeper remained 
at his post. He was awakened at midnight by a glare 
of light falling across his eyelids. Greatly astonished 
to find himself napping in so holy a place at such an 
hour, he was still more amazed at seeing the altar- 
candles alight with a halo like that around the head 
of Christ in pictures, while before them a priest in 
white robes was in the act of commencing a mass. 
But, being a man of pious disposition, and, also, not a 
little awed by the circumstances in which he found 
himself, he very reverently joined in the service, mak- 
ing the usual responses, and bowing his knees at the 
proper time. The priest recited with extraordinary 



240 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

fervor, and our Siennese felt unusually edified and 
uplifted by the holy words, more so than had ever been 
the case with him on any previous religious occasion. 
The mass being ended, the priest noiselessly glided to 
the sacristy, and entered it, without drawing the cur- 
tain, or even shaking it by his passage. The specta- 
tor hesitated some time between respect and curiosity, 
but finally stole to the doorway, and, cautiously push- 
ing aside the drooping linen, peeped into the sacerdotal 
precinct. 

At that moment the priest rose from his knees, with 
a countenance full of unearthly joy, and turned toward 
him. The Siennese would have drawn back; but 
when the other, in a low, sweet tone, bade him enter, 
he obeyed, and stood trembling by the door. 

"My son," said the priest, "thou art anxious to 
know why I celebrate this service alone and at this 
unusual hour. Know, then, that I am a spirit just 
liberated from Purgatory, and by thy means. When 
I died I had one grievous sin on my soul, and that 
was that I had neglected mass for the repose of one 
dead ; neglected it, too, that I might pass the time in 
worldly mirth. So Christ condemned me to remain in 
suffering until I could repeat it in this place, with some 
faithful Christian to render from his heart the just re- 
sponses. But until this time no one came, and thus 
I labored in vain for many years. But now, thanks 
to thee, and thanks, above all, to our merciful Lord, I 
have done my work, and am free to ascend to Paradise. 
The blessing of a purified soul and the blessing of God 
be with thee! Amen." 

So saying, he vanished, leaving his listener wonder- 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 241 

struck, trembling, but, as became a man of his piety, 
exceedingly joyful at the good which he had been the 
means of accomplishing. He retired to his bench, 
and, falling calmly asleep, remained in a gentle slum- 
ber until the sacristan discovered him in the morning. 

o 

" Did you get this out of a book, Maria?" I asked, 
when the girl had finished her tale. 

" No, no, not out of a book. All the children tell 
it at Sienna. Every body knows it at Sienna. And 
it is true, perfectly true. Oh yes." 

Another story of Maria's had been related to her, 
she said, by a very learned lady of Sienna, from which 
circumstance I have some fears that it may have al- 
ready appeared in Italian print. It referred to a night- 
adventure of a young Siennese musician named Mar- 
tino, son of sober and devout parents, but a youth of 
very undutiful, vicious, and irreligious character. Be- 
ing a great spendthrift, this same scampish Martino 
not only got rid of all the money that he could earn 
himself, but of all that he was able to beg from his 
over-indulgent parents. Late one night he came home 
from a wine-shop where he had been carousing with 
ungodly companions, and demanded, a score of florins, 
or some such enormous sum, of his mother. The good 
woman showed him her empty purse, and remonstrated 
with him on his evil and prodigal ways ; upon which 
the graceless youth got into a rage, and, catching up 
his violin, ran out of the house, swearing that he must 
have money, and that to get it he would play the dev- 
il's own tune. 

It was late now ; the wine-shops were shut, the 
streets were empty, and Martino found himself alone 

L 



242 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

in a city of slumberers. He walked on moodily until 
he came to the Piazza of the Duomo, where he halted 
in the shadow thrown on the moonlit pavement by the 
marble walls of the fine old Palazzo Saracini. All the 
other buildings of the square were dim and silent, as 
usual at that hour ; but the windows of the palace 
were bright, as if with some ball or other revelry of 
extraordinary splendor. As he stood before the great 
portal, a cavalier — a tall, dark man, whom Martino 
had never seen before — emerged from the archway 
and advanced toward him. He, of course, wore a 
cloak and a slouched hat. Who ever heard of a 
mysterious cavalier at that hour of the night who did 
not wear a cloak and a slouched hat ? But he had a 
noble port, and a degree of magnificence in his costume 
which very much imposed upon Martino's spirit as he 
came up and faced him. 

"Are you going to a revelry at this hour?" said the 
stranger, pointing significantly to Martino's violin. 

"I hope so, in the name of all the saints!" replied 
the Siennese; "but I very much doubt it. I am a 
poor man, sign or," he added, after another glance at 
the cavalier's costly cloak. "I would be glad to earn 
a little money; perhaps your excellency could put me 
in the way of it." 

" Perhaps I could," said the stranger, laughing 
with a tone which Martino thought rather disagree- 
able. "Well, come with me. Do exactly as I bid 
you, and I will give you more money than you ever 
saw. What do you say ?" 

"Agreed!" responded Martino, slapping his violin 
as if he were to take oath upon it, The cavalier gave 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 243 

a sudden stamp on the pavement ; the earth and the 
midnight air seemed to vibrate with a violent shock, 
and before Martino could cross himself he found that 
he was inside of what seemed to be a splendid palace. 
He was astonished at his rapid change of locality, but 
not unreasonably terrified, for a confused notion came 
across him that by some legerdemain he had been 
jerked into a hall of the Palazzo Saracini. The cava- 
lier having disappeared, he amused himself by staring 
about to see what kind of place the interior of that 
famous old family mansion might be. It was mag- 
nificent enough, certainly ; for there were bronze col- 
umns, curtains of cloth of gold, and all kinds of splen- 
did furniture and ornaments. But it was oppressively 
warm ; so close, indeed, that he found it difficult to 
breathe, and the floor was heated to that degree that 
he could feel it unpleasantly through the soles of his 
shoes. What puzzled him most was to see this brill- 
iant receiving-hall deformed by long rows of curtained 
bedsteads, from each of which came, now and then, low 
groans, exactly as if the place were a hospital crowded 
with suffering invalids. 

" This is odd," muttered Martino ; " who ever knew 
that there were so many sick people inside of the Pa- 
lazzo Saracini ? But, doubtless, I have been brought 
here to divert them with a little music. I wish it was 
cooler, though. Who the devil can play a violin in 
this heat ?" 

Presently he walked on tiptoe to one of the bed- 
steads, and took the liberty of drawing the curtains a 
little to enable him to look within. He was not sur- 
prised to discover a man stretched there, but he was 



244 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

very much astonished, indeed, to recognize in him an 
old acquaintance, a certain graceless elf named Carlo 
Dinaccio, who had been drowned in the Arno two 
years before. 

"Why, Carlo — friend Carlo," said he, as soon as 
he could get breath to speak, "what does this mean? 
We thought you were dead. How came you in the 
Palazzo Saracini?" 

"Ah! Martino," replied the other, in a lamentable 
tone, "are you, too, here? Have you, too, left the 
land of the living and come to these abodes of tor- 
ture?" 

"Left the land of the living 1 ." responded Martino. 
" Not a bit of it. I am as much alive as possible, and 
so, it appears, are you." 

"This is a great mystery," muttered Carlo, with a 
groan. 

"Ay, ay," said Martino, "you are surprised at my 
having found you out." 

" Martino," resumed the other, " do you know where 
you are ?" 

" Exactly, old fellow ! I am in the palace of the 
Saracini in Sienna." 

"No, Martino, you are in the palace of Satanasso 
in hell." 

Martino made a great jump into the middle of the 
room, and came very near knocking out his brains or 
breaking his fiddle in a sudden fit of desperation. Re- 
suming courage as he looked around on the splendid 
hall, he came back to the bedside. 

"But, my dear Carlo, supposing things are as you 
say, hell is not so bad a place, after all. You seem 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 245 

to be very comfortable here. It is a little warm, to be 
sure, but quite endurable, notwithstanding." 

" Put your hand into my bed," replied Carlo, " and 
see if I am so very comfortable." 

Martino did as he was directed, and twitched out his 
fingers considerably scorched. " In the name of God, 
my dear friend, my dear Carlo, who was that cava- 
lier that brought me here ?" he screamed ; " and how 
am I to get out of this place ? Oh ! dear me, how hot 
it is ! Oh ! I did not know it was half so hot. Oh ! 
for the sake of our old friendship, Carlo, tell me how 
I am to get out of this place." 

Carlo, for a wicked man and a lost spirit, was 
wonderfully obliging, and gave his friend the best ad- 
vice, probably, that he was able. "Be quiet," said he ; 
" you can not escape by force. If you have promised 
to play at the devil's ball, as I suppose you have, you 
must fulfill your agreement ; but when he offers to pay 
you, refuse ; at all events, only accept so much as he 
himself puts in your hand. He who stoops to pick up 
the devil's gold inevitably drops his own soul." 

Scarcely had these excellent admonitions been ut- 
tered when Martino heard himself called by a voice 
which he recognized as that of the false cavalier. Cast- 
ing a parting glance of terror and pity on his lost 
friend, he sprang to the door, and met his spiritual 
guide and discomforter. The devil led him silently 
through a suite of long halls, magnificently adorned, 
but all pervaded by the same stifling atmosphere. 
They entered a vast saloon, crowded with people, and 
mounted a platform, on which the cavalier took a 
seat, motioning his companion to another. The guests 



246 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

were of both sexes, elegantly dressed, as if of the high- 
est rank, but the most mournful, melancholy set of 
revelers that Martino had ever imagined. At a signal 
from the cavalier they ranged themselves in parties 
for dancing, and at another signal the miserable mu- 
sician struck up a joyous tune on his violin. The ball 
opened, and the woeful-looking guests whirled away 
with a mad rapidity of step which contrasted strangely 
with the utterly disconsolate expression of their faces. 

"Faster!" roared the devil. Faster went the fid- 
dle-bow over the strings, and the dancers' feet over the 
floor. " Faster ! faster !" shouted this energetic mas- 
ter of ceremonies, and each tremendous command ex- 
tracted new rapidity out of the violinist's elbows and 
the doleful revelers' knees. Martino's body ached to 
the end of his nails, but he played on with the per- 
severance of desperation, until the dancers, one after 
another, fell exhausted and seemingly senseless on the 
floor. 

When the last one was down, and it was evident 
that there was not a kick left in the company, the devil 
patted Martino on the shoulder, and bade him follow 
and get his pay. He then led the way into another 
room, one half of which was piled from floor to ceiling 
with shining gold pieces. "Take what you want — 
fill your pockets," said he, with a wicked smile. Mar- 
tino was prodigiously tempted, and resolved inwardly 
to accept at least all that the devil would hand him. 
"May it please your excellency to pay me yourself," 
said he. 

"Do not be afraid," repeated the infernal cavalier; 
"no squeamishness. Take all you can carry." 



MARIA AND HER STORIES. 247 

Martino again objected, and a long contest of in- 
vitations and refusals ensued between them. At last 
the devil, out of all patience, snatched up a handful 
of the gold and thrust it into the musician's hand. "A 
thousand thanks," said Martino ; " infinitely obliged ; 
and now, if your excellency would only have the kind- 
ness to send me home." 

"Go!" shouted the devil, and gave a tremendous 
stamp on the pavement, which made the gold roll down 
like a yellow avalanche. 

In the same instant Martino found himself lying in 
the street at the door of the Palazzo Saracini. It was 
almost morning, and the working-people were begin- 
ning to glide about the city to their avocations. Mar- 
tino had a distinct recollection of what had passed, and 
his arms still ached with his extraordinary artistic ex- 
ertions in the infernal ball-room ; yet he could not per- 
suade himself but that he had been dreaming, until he 
put his hand in his pocket, and found there thirty or 
forty pieces of gold, still warm from the fiendish sub- 
treasury. Then, in a delirium of terror and joy, he 
rushed home and told his story. It is said that he 
immediately broke up his spendthrift habits, put his 
money into business with great success, became a fa- 
mous usurer, got extremely rich, and finally went to 
perdition in the ordinary way. 

But I should fill two or three chapters if I told all 
the stories and superstitious beliefs with which Maria 
amused me. I must observe that she did not relate 
the above tale in the jesting style which I have given 
it, but quite gravely, as if it were a very serious his- 
tory which might be true, notwithstanding certain im- 



248 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

probabilities. In fact, she believed firmly in the horns 
and tail, and had what might be called a very saving 
faith in the devil. 

One fancy of hers deserves notice, as it was nothing 
less than a desire to have a Bible. She never had 
read the book, and was curious to see what it con- 
tained. I undertook to gratify this wish, and visited 
every book-store in Florence, in a vain search after 
that anti-papal publication. There was one edition 
of it to be had, indeed, but it consisted of six large 
volumes, both too bulky and too expensive for any but 
the rich. Every day, when Maria met me, she inquired 
if I had found her Bible. My barber at last relieved 
me from further search by telling me that he could get 
me a copy of a small size ; and, coming a day or two 
after to my room, he opened his cloak and showed me 
a pocket Italian Bible, printed at Malta by the En- 
glish Bible Society. He refused to tell me where he 
had obtained it, and never ceased to implore me not to 
mention the affair to a living soul. It would be a 
great annoyance to him if it were known, he said, and 
might ruin the friend from whom he had obtained the 
book. 

I gave it to Maria, supposing that she would soon 
be tired of it ; but, on the contrary, she read it like 
a story-book, night and morning, at every leisure mo- 
ment. She had some novel on hand at the time, but 
the human romance seemed to lose all value by the 
side of the divine history, and was thrown aside only 
half perused. The historical parts interested her ex- 
tremely, as might have been expected ; but she also 
read the prophecies and the epistles of Paul with a 



MAEIA AND HER STORIES. 249 

vague understanding and a timorous anxiety to catch 
their full import. She had no doubts of any doctrine 
or assertion ; no suspicion as to the full and awful in- 
spiration of the book. The passages on eternal con- 
demnation, and more especially those on the power 
and malice of the devil, frightened her horribly, and 
she almost cried with fear as she read them to me, 
seemingly with a vague hope that I could contradict 
them and save her from their terrors. At the same 
time, there was a childishness in her interest, and a 
novelty in some of her comments, which occasionally 
made me smile. " Povero Gesu !" (poor Jesus !) she 
said, when she had finished the story of the Crucifix- 
ion. 

I left the Bible in Maria's hands with a promise 
from her that she never would give it up to a priest. 
I should like to know the future history of that Bible, 
for there are not so many in Tuscany but that the ad- 
ventures of one of them might be of some particular 
interest. Maria carried it away with her when she 
left Florence, and it is probable that I never shall hear 
of either again. 

PICTUEE. 

THE SACRAMENT OF COLUMBUS AT PALOS.* 

He kneels upon the chancel pave, 

Madonna's image o'er him bendeth, 
The altar candles burn and wave, 

The incense into gloom ascendeth ; 
Amid the hushing litanies 

A priest the awful Host extendeth, 
And thronging men lift suppliant eyes 

To Him whose word the heavens rendeth. 

* Suggested by a painting of my friend, Edwin "White. 

L2 



250 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Along the colonnaded aisles 

Majestic symphonies are reeling ; 
From unknown lands, from nameless isles, 

They seem, like revelations, pealing; 
A vision floats before his soul, 

Barbaric hosts and pomps revealing, 
Then back the lofty vaultings roll, 

And heaven shines where he is kneeling. 

"O blissful vision! mortal bless'd!" 

He sobs through tears unconscious streaming ; 
" The glorious cross ! the cross of Christ ! 

I see it over oceans beaming ; 
And God hath chosen me to bear 

Its light through night, a world redeeming ; 
I go, I fly, on wings of air, 

My life no longer mine esteeming." 

He goes, the man of Deity, 

The hero Nature long had waited, 
To read the secret of the sea, 

To execute what God had fated ; 
To fling the ocean's gates ajar, 

As Jesus those which sin created ; 
To be, like Him, a guiding star 

Whose light still shineth unabated. 



AL MEZZOGIOKNO. 251 



CHAPTER XXII. 

AL MEZZOGIORNO. 

Late in the autumn of 1854 I left Florence, not 
forever, but to pass a winter in Rome and Naples, 
from whence to seek again my Etruscan paradise of 
Indolence. I had seen Sienna repeatedly, Pisa also, 
and Lucca, those three gems of Middle-age art and 
decayed historic glory. As the journey over land from 
Florence to Rome is, in winter, uncomfortable, and 
only passably interesting, I went to Leghorn by rail- 
road, thence to Civita Vecchia by steamer, and thence 
in a diligence to the capital of the Cassars. The* ap- 
proaches to Rome are nearly as desolate as those to 
Jerusalem. A fortnight before my passage through 
that misgoverned, doleful camjpagna, the diligence had 
been stopped, its passengers plundered, and the mail 
relieved of two thousand dollars. Consequently, the 
fat Irish priest, the sandy-haired Prussian artist, and 
the grave Italians, who, with myself, formed our com- 
pany, were all on the look-out for brigands, ready to 
deliver at a moment's notice, but praying rather to be 
delivered. We were agreeably disappointed, therefore, 
at meeting nothing more rascally than an occasional 
patrolling Roman dragoon. A sick artilleryman of 
the garrison of Civita Vecchia, who was going home 
on leave, pointed to one of these really fine-looking 
troopers, and said, with a derisive smile, "All black- 



252 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

guards, Signor. They are in league with the robbers, 
and share profits with them." 

"What are these brigands?" I asked him. "Are 
they regular bandits, who keep the mountains and live 
in caves, such as we see pictures of?" 

" No, only peasants or shepherds, who rob by night, 
and follow their plows or their sheep the next day as 
if nothing had happened." 

" Why does not the police ferret them out, then, 
since it could do it so easily ?" 

"Ah, Signor, you are a foreigner. They pay the 
police better than the government does." 

I hope that no one expects me to say a word about 
the galleries of Rome, or the ruins, or the festas. I 
have undertaken to write a book about people, and I 
shall leave all those other wonders to some more dili- 
gent student of Murray's invaluable "Hand-book." 

Making a tour of some of the better streets to find 
lodgings, I discovered that rooms were about twice as 
expensive and half as good in Rome as in Florence. 
Entering a house where chambers were advertised to 
let on the third floor, I stopped by mistake at the sec- 
ond, and rather surprised the respectable jpadrona by 
demanding quarters. It was a new idea to her ; she 
had not placarded any hospitality for single gentlemen ; 
but, now that one such offered himself, she was more 
charitable than I had found the nuns of Florence. 
Thus, before night, I was installed in two comfortable 
front rooms of a decent citizen's tenement on the Monte 
Pincio. Mine host was a well-educated, good-natured, 
broad-faced, pursy gentleman of fifty, an official in the 
Papal Mint. He often came into my parlor of an even- 



AL MEZZOGIORNO. 253 

ing to pass an hour or so in reading poetry with me, 
discussing Italian literature, and repeating the news 
of Rome. "You are the first American," said he, 
"that I ever heard speak, and I like your accent ex- 
ceedingly. Is it possible that your language is the 
same with the English? And yet you speak so dif- 
ferently! They talk just like birds, those English. 
They gabble our Italian all in their throats." 

I believe it is true that our American accent in a 
foreign tongue is considerably different from that of 
an Englishman, although which is apt to be the most 
correct I would not undertake to decide, not even on 
the authority of mine host of the Monte Pincio. 

He told me that once in a year all the officials of 
the government were treated to a kiss of the Pope's 
foot, and he described to me, with considerable vanity 
and appetite, his own participation in that ennobling 
enjoyment. "It is very clean," said he, speaking of 
the sacred pedal, " well washed beforehand, and raised 
on a cushion, so that we can get at it easily. JSTow 
the Pope, Pio Nono, was an old schoolfellow of mine, 
and he remembers it to this day. The very last time 
I kissed his foot he looked at me most graciously, and. 
says he, 'Ah! Gigi' (that is me — that is my name); 
6 ah ! Gigi,' says he, and smiled. Then he pointed to 
my mustaches ; you know the Pope can not bear 
mustaches, because they are worn by Republicans. 
'Ah! Gigi,' says he, 'I dislike those things.' 'Ex- 
cuse me, your holiness,' says I, ' but I have been used 
to them from youth, and can not bear to part with 
them.' " 

Perhaps, thought I, they tickled the sacred foot. 



254 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

I found among the Eomans a feeling of deep polit- 
ical dissatisfaction, not so much with the Pope person- 
ally as with the temporal government of the papacy. 
They would like to see a republic or a constitutional 
monarchy established throughout Italy, and Pio JNTono 
reduced to his proper position of a spiritual pontiff and 
nothing more. It was against the cardinals, and par- 
ticularly against that master of priestcraft, Antonelli, 
that they grumbled the most bitterly. One man, a 
person of the same respectable grade of society as my 
landlord, told me that Antonelli was a great scoundrel, 
and represented a family which had enriched itself by 
connivance with the brigands who have always infest- 
ed the frontier between Eome and Naples. The same 
gentleman said that there were thousands of people in 
the public prisons who had not only been seized with- 
out any known accusation, but condemned and pun- 
ished without trial. Pointing out to me an interest- 
ing young woman of twenty -seven, leading a little 
child, he informed me that her husband had lately 
been kidnapped on pretense of some shadowy misde- 
meanor committed twelve years before. She had not 
yet learned his real offense ; she could not even dis- 
cover where he was incarcerated ; all she knew was 
that he had not returned to her one night, and that the 
police had told her not to search for him. 

To speak jestingly of serious matters, the Eomans 
would do well to take a lesson from a certain small 
dog who haunts their Piazza di Spagna. But Sikes 
was an English cur, not an Italian one, and though 
runty, as well as troubled with a chronic limp, pos- 
sessed the true British pluck equally with the true 



AL MEZZOGIORNO. 255 

British appetite. The great exploit of Sikes, and what 
chiefly wrought his fame among travelers, was an ef- 
fort of dexterous and successful audacity in providing 
himself a dinner. Many Romans never prepare their 
meals at home, but have them sent ready cooked from 
the trattorias, borne in huge tin cases on the heads of 
porters. One afternoon Sikes met a porter thus laden, 
and followed him for some distance, snuffing the deli- 
cious odor of soup, beef, mutton, et cetera. Sikes was 
hungry, and the exercise made him hungrier, but the 
trattoria man took no charitable notice of him, and 
hurried on to his destination. What could a dinner- 
less dog do, under the circumstances, but set his teeth 
into one of the rascal's legs, and hold on until the blood 
came? While the surprised individual yelled and 
jumped, down came the tin case, bursting open with 
the shock, and scattering its savory entrails over the 
pavement. Sikes put his teeth into a beefsteak, and 
vanished down a side street into some asylum, where 
the beefsteak, as such, soon ceased to exist. This 
achievement spread his name far and wide among the 
trattoria porters, who ever after held him in mingled 
terror and detestation. As for him, as far as I could 
investigate his feelings, he looked on the whole dinner- 
carrying set with fierce contempt ; and I have repeat- 
edly observed him turn up his lip as one of them went 
by, and give vent to a little growl, which seemed to 
say, "I can manage those tin-headed fellows ; call on 
me if a beefsteak is wanted." 

Now let the Romans unanimously set teeth into the 
fat legs of their popes and cardinals, instead of kissing 
their ignominious toes, and they too will have their just 



256 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

share of the beefsteaks of Italy. Still, they could not 
do it alone. No, the Italians never can be free until 
they are united; and as for Italian unity, it is, thus far, 
the haziest of dreams. I verily believe that the Flor- 
entines and Leghornese, for instance, despise each oth- 
er about as heartily as they hate the Austrians ; and I 
am inclined to allow that neither their contempt nor 
their hatred are very egregiously misplaced. 

I consider both Eome and Naples inferior in gen- 
eral architectural beauty to Florence, although their 
palaces are larger, and their public buildings more nu- 
merous. Both, however, far surpass in this respect 
any Anglo-Saxon city, and will do so, whatever our 
splendor may be, as long as we hold to our present 
method of planning private houses. We divide our 
blocks vertically into small sections, each with its own 
scant flight of steps, its own trifling front door, its own 
stinted roof. The consequence is a mean littleness of 
feature in our streets, a combination of narrow fronts, 
insignificant portals, brief ranges of windows, broken 
lines of cornice, and sudden, disagreeable contrasts of 
architecture. The divisions in Europe are, on the con- 
trary, horizontal, and the households reside, not in 
small separate dwellings, but in spacious stories. This 
gives an opportunity to project vast edifices, continu- 
ous and imposing facades, noble portals, and a large, 
dignified style of ornament. The buildings in Fifth 
Avenue are, perhaps, as costly as those on the Lung' 
Arno of Pisa ; yet the former looks like a range of 
private tenements, while the latter has a stately pala- 
tial grandeur. As for Broadway, it is at present, with 
all its riches, an architectural failure, and it would be 



AL MEZZOGIORNO. 257 

necessary to line it with Astors and Metropolitans be- 
fore it could rival the princely stateliness of the Ko- 
man Corso. 

Aside from the vastly superior beauty attainable by 
this mode of building, there are social advantages in it 
which fully equal the advantages of our own method. 
" But," says Miss Caroline Pettitoes, " I do not desire 
such social advantages ; I do not care, for instance, to 
know the family of that inevitable costermonger in the 
garret." My dear lady, do not annoy yourself with 
any such shocking supposition ; you need not know 
the family in the attic any more than you need know 
the family in the porter's lodge at the great doorway. 
Go with your married brother to Florence, choose the 
street or the piazza which you like best, and hire a 
handsome apartment in one of those fine palaces that 
make the city glorious. You may live there a month, 
three months, six months, yet the stories above you 
and the stories below you shall still be to you a terra 
incognita. Through the superb arched portal, and up 
the broad, costly starring you sweep at will, exchang- 
ing no glance of recognition with the people who meet 
you. The Italian marquis raises his hat because it is 
a lady who passes ; but he no more speaks to you 
than your neighbor at home would address you on the 
Broadway pavement without an introduction. Con- 
sider further how very convenient for family purposes 
in New York would be this combination under one 
roof of apartments princely with apartments econom- 
ical. At present your brother Howard, the merchant, 
lives a few blocks above Grace Church, while your 
brother John, the clerk, must seek his home four miles 



258 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

off, somewhere above One Hundred and Fiftieth Street. 
At Florence, Howard, John, yourself, your father and 
mother (now too old to ride far), could all find abode, 
according to their several means, on the different floors 
of a noble palace, which should be called the Palazzo 
Pettitoes. Will your brother John say that he does 
not care to receive notes and parcels directed to him in 
the third story ? Ask him if he is not perfectly satis- 
fied when he gets a chamber in the third story of the 
St. Nicholas. Custom makes the one genteel, tell 
him, and custom could make the other genteel. 

From Miss Pettitoes I return to the women of Rome, 
concerning whom I will say that they appeared to me 
the prettiest of Italy, and therefore the prettiest of Con- 
tinental Europe. As regular in feature as the Flo- 
rentine^ they have an expression of more fire, and forms 
more lusciously developed. It is to be confessed, 
indeed, with sorrow, that, when a few years out of 
girlhood, they become even too rounded and dim- 
pled. 

I consider the Italian women in general as not only 
among the handsomest in the world, but as morally 
admirable for true feminine nature. They possess, in 
an uncommon completeness, all the elements of perfect 
womanliness : they are affectionate, constant, unsus- 
picious, gentle -hearted, almost never coquettish, and 
have that sweet timidity which we love in women. I 
say that nature has endowed them with these charm- 
ing qualities ; I do not say that they always keep them 
undesecrated by vices. But if they are often false to 
themselves and to others, who most deserves the 
blame? Women are every where very much what 



AL MEZZOGIOKNO. 259 

men make them ; and if the husbands of Italy find 
their wives unfaithful, it is but the chastisement of 
their own libertinage. What astonishes one is the 
ever renewed confidence which the Italiana puts in 
her deceivers, after having been duped again and again. 
The last lover was a faithless monster, but the new one 
is sincere and adorable. There is no skepticism in her 
heart ; she has an affectionate trustfulness that is beau- 
tiful. "Our women are very credulous," said a Pa- 
lernitano to me; "tell them you love them, and they 
believe you immediately." 

And then, replacing his cigar in his mouth, he nod- 
ded with a knowing, contemptuous air, as if he had 
stated one of the most ridiculous possible instances of 
infatuated simplicity. Well might he expect me to 
be stricken with wonder, for, in general, a more hyp- 
ocritical set of gallants does not exist than the young 
men of Italy. A friend of mine, who, during a stay 
of some years in the country, has studied both people 
and language well, repeated to me a conversation illus- 
trative of this subject. An English girl, residing at 
Florence to perfect herself in music, questioned him 
cautiously concerning a certain Signor Cavalloni, of 
that city. 

"I know of him, at least," replied my narrator; 
" he is quite a beau here. Has he made your acquaint- 
ance ?" 

" Made it ! he annoys me to death. That is just 
what I wished to consult you about. I want some 
one to keep him away from me." 

" Indeed I So you don't like him ?" 

" Of course I don't. Why, he is extremely impu- 



260 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

dent. The other day he actually made me a regular 
declaration of love." 

"Ah! that was a great piece of impertinence, cer- 
tainly. Well, I hope there is no need of warning you. 
I presume you understand the folly of trusting these 
Italian gallants." 

" I understand very well that he does not wish to 
marry me. But you should have seen him and heard 
him ; you would certainly have thought that he was 
in love with me to distraction. He begged very 
hard to be allowed to sit down by me, or, at least, 
to take my hand. But I kept my fingers out of his 
reach, and stood bolt upright until he left. And 
then he talked — oh how movingly and mournfully he 
talked!" 

"Did he cry?" 

" Cry ! why, you surprise me. How came you to 
suspect that he cried ? I never meant to tell you that ; 
I thought it was too absurd to be believed. Yes, he 
cried plentifully, copiously. But, now, what made you 
suppose that he cried ?" 

" Oh, they always fall back on their tears when mat- 
ters look desperate. It is a famous resource with them, 
and very commonly used, I assure you." 

" Dear me ! I never knew before that it was a 
man's trick. Oh ! I am vexed with him now, for he 
really deceived me, you know. I thought he was 
deeply in love when he cried, and I began to pity him. 
Well, if he pesters me again, I hope you will help me 
get rid of him." 

" Of course, with the greatest pleasure. We will 
try our best to make him cry some more." 



AL MEZZOGIORNO. 261 

By way of closing this chapter, I shall offer a sketch 
of one of my lady acquaintances, 

"Di quel b el passe la dove 'I si suona" 
Her palace is a four-storied stone edifice of simple 
yet graceful fashion, with a carriage-entrance opening 
into the court, and balconies overlooking a square 
adorned by one of the finest churches of the city. I 
step within the arched portal, and ring at a lofty gate 
of strong latticed woodwork. It flies open at the 
tension of a cord drawn in some invisible servants' 
hall, and, as I enter a passage paved with broad flag- 
stones, closes behind me like the gate of an enchanted 
palace. No one appears thus far, for no one knows 
whether I intend to call on the lady of the first story 
or on her sister-in-law of the story above. I ascend a 
wide, handsome stairway of stone, and find myself on 
a spacious landing-place, where there is another door, 
much smaller than the one below, but still of brave 
dimensions and solidity. I ring, and a servant appears 
to answer my inquiry if the signora receives this after- 
noon. A "sSi, Signor" a bow, and a wave of the hand 
usher me into the hall, and from thence into an ante- 
room, at which point the liveried Giacomo disappears, 
knowing that I am acquainted with the apartments. 
I pass through a reception room with a vaulted ceiling 
and frescoed walls, lighted by a fine window which 
opens into one of the front balconies. I do not turn 
to the right into the great pictured saloon, because I 
am aware that it is only used on more stately occasions. 
A murmur of voices to the left guides me to the door 
of a charming boudoir, the walls of which are draped 
to the floor with blue silk, while the same delicate 



262 EUEOPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

stuff covers the chairs and divans. The room is not 
small in reality, "but appears so from its comparative 
loftiness. In one corner of it — in the same corner 
where I always find her on these receptions — sits the 
lady of the house. By the dim light which falls 
through the heavily- curtained window I see a form, 
slender almost to fragility, lounging with a voluptuous 
indolence of posture and manner in an arm-chair mass- 
ive and silken enough for a throne. She has a pale 
but perfectly clear complexion ; eyes long-lashed, and 
black even to glitteringness ; dark, straight hair, braided 
with an exquisite complexity ; features too aquiline for 
a perfect contour, yet, on the whole, agreeable ; while 
throughout the face dreams a refined languor, occasion- 
ally relieved by a flush of emotion. 

A smile, half of conventional welcome, half perhaps 
of real friendliness, salutes my entrance. Next come 
inquiries how I continue to like Florence, and whether 
I have heard any thing amusing since we last parted ; 
after which the signora turns again to the Countess de 
Chalonge to recommence an interrupted conversation 
on the expected ball of that evening at the Casa Nobile. 
The countess describes the dress which she intends to 
wear, and begs the same confidence of her rival. The 
latter, having depicted minutely her proposed flowers 
and flounces, turns once more to me, demanding, 
" Shall you be there to see me, Monsieur?" 

"JSTo, Madame, but I shall pass the whole evening 
in imagining you there." 

This ' passionate response means nothing, and is a 
mere triviality of politeness. Still, it wins a good- 
humored smile from my hostess, and a look of approval 



AL MEZZOGIORNO. 263 

from her lady visitor, who thinks, perhaps, that I have 
said a very genteel thing, considering that I am not a 
Frenchman. Presently the countess rises and takes 
her departure, saluting the sig?iora with soft well- 
wishes and anticipations of a pleasurable meeting in 
the evening, but (as she amuses herself at present 
with an affectation of prudery) scarcely deigning to 
notice me in her rustling exit from the boudoir. 

Now it is my turn, and I parade my best ideas on 
— no matter what — the Opera, the last new singer, 
the last new comedy, the races, balls — conversational 
knick-knacks, in short, of all descriptions. If we speak 
of poetry, my lady amateur almost invariably quotes 
Petrarch, for she is very sentimental, notwithstanding 
that she pretends to have seen through all this life's 
illusions. We are just in the middle of a sonnet, 
perhaps, when I hear steps in the outer room, and a 
brisk little marquis skips through the doorway. He 
compliments "Madame" in French, although he is a 
born Florentine, and, taking her hand, he touches it 
lightly to his lips. The action means nothing, or next 
to nothing, and is received without a blush or a look 
of surprise. According to Italian rules of courtesy, it 
is now my duty to go, and leave the field open to my 
successor. Informing the lady that I have the honor 
to bid her good-by, I bow myself out of the room, 
while she nods, smiles, and responds, if she cares to 
see me again soon, "JL bentosto" (until very soon), or, 
perhaps, "A dimane sera" (until to-morrow evening). 
Sometimes I met more people at these receptions ; 
then the conversation became general, and every body 
talked to every body, acquainted or not, Barely were 



264 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

persons presented to each other, as all were supposed 
for the time to be equals and friends, however strange 
they might be to each other the moment of their exit 
from the palace. This is better than our custom of 
universal introductions, and gives a freer movement to 
society in any chance reunion. 

Once, when calling of an evening at an Italian house, 
I found quite a circle, including the husband and wife, 
both young, two sisters of the gentleman, and several 
visitors of both sexes. We were in the large dancing 
saloon, a fine room, with a lordly, arched ceiling, and 
frescoed walls decorated by pictures of real merit. 
The eldest sister, a gay, good-hearted creature, lively 
and boisterous for an Italian lady, sat down to the 
piano, and played the choicest parts of Robert the 
Devil. The others moved through a pantomime of 
that wild opera with a facility, a grace, and an expres- 
sion which would have done honor to long artistic ex- 
perience. Very unwillingly did I allow myself to be 
forced into the game, for I felt as if my northern stiff- 
ness jarred harshly with the flexile movement and pow- 
er of personification instinctive in these southern na- 
tures. So let them fly away now from my memory, 
treading on skies of music and interwinding through 
a dance of poesy ! 



ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 265 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 

Thus far I have only noted such of my European 
acquaintance as belonged to the biped or quadruped 
species. But man has other intimates than man in 
the world — others even than birds, beasts, fishes, in- 
sects, and reptiles. He is able so to vivify his own 
creations, so to impress them with his own thoughts 
and emotions, that they also are to a degree changed 
into living creatures, and stand for such to every edu- 
cated sensitive spirit. The sculptor becomes not only 
the father of his own statue, but the relative of every 
other man's statue. He may not like his new neph- 
ews and cousins, indeed ; he may regard them with 
jealousy, envy, contempt, hatred, and indifference ; but 
he has married into the family for better or for worse ; 
nor will the high-priest Nature ever grant him a di- 
vorce. And as the sculptor becomes kinsman to the 
marble people, so do the rest of us become its ac- 
quaintance. We fall in love with the Venus de Me- 
dici, pause with sympathy before the eternal suffering 
of the Laocoon, turn away from the face of the knife- 
grinder to wonder for years over its hidden yet earnest 
meaning, remember the Dying Gladiator with as much 
compassion as we remember the Byron who described 
him, forget not the sublime grace of the Apollo when 
the tourists who stood by our side before his pedestal 
have long since passed from our memory. 

IM 



266 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Nor is it the statue alone that thus becomes instinct 
with life to us. Pictures, temples, castles, palaces, 
the sites of fallen cities, a thousand things that have 
been touched by man, are blessed with some remnant 
of his life, and can often rise at our desire into living, 
sympathetic creatures, as the skeletons which the 
Prophet saw transformed themselves at his word into 
the warriors of an exceeding great army. The splen- 
dor of a perished empire may exhale visibly from a 
shattered vase or violated sarcophagus, as the Genii 
rose out of the brazen bottle before the eyes of the 
fisherman. Italy is crowded with the bones of histo- 
ry and with the relics of art, waiting but the passage 
of a poetic spirit to be clothed upon with a beautiful 
resurrection. 

Into Italy, therefore, I entered as into a Valley of 
Vision, where I should behold glories little less than 
unutterable. Memorable and humiliating was my dis- 
appointment. Despite of strong effort to realize the 
historic value of the scenes around me, despite of du- 
tiful pilgrimages to countless classic shrines, I re- 
mained the same being that I had been in America, 
the spirit equally clogged by the body, the wings of 
the imagination as easily wearied as ever, and the ter- 
restrial nature which they have to upbear as ponder- 
ous. 

More than this, the very beauty of Italy, the finish 
of its scenery, and the luxury of its climate, seemed to 
lap me into an unusual sensuousness of enjoyment. 
Particularly was this noticeable at Florence, where I 
staid longest and fought my earthliness hardest. 1 
wondered how Galileo could have been intellectual 



ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 267 

there, how Dante and Michael Angelo could have been 
sublime there. It was in vain, for the most part, that 
I tried to study the art which was around me, or tried 
to call up the antiquity which crouched mysteriously 
behind it, and I returned forever to the starlight on 
the Arno, to the sunlight on the green hills, to the 
whispering groves of the Cascine, as to the immemo- 
rial and rightful deities of the locality. 

Yet occasionally in Florence were there some up- 
risings of the famous past, especially when I halted to 
gaze at the aged battlements and beetling tower of the 
Palazzo Vecchio. Once more the Gonfaloniere swept 
through- the portal ; once more the trades and compa- 
nies met in confused election ; once more arose a dis- 
cordant but free murmur of Guelf and Ghibelline 
voices. And then again suddenly all these visions 
melted into the indolent sunshine, or were borne away 
on the ripple of the jioco-cwante Arno. The experi- 
ence of others may be magnificently different from this, 
but at least one fellow-traveler and travel-writer tells 
me that it was his story in Florence as well as mine. 

In architecture, my most intimate friends while in 
the Tuscan capital were the old palaces and the Cam- 
panile of the Duomo. In the former I thought I could 
see the pugnacious vigor of the Florentine nobility in 
the days of Dante, combined with the industrial util- 
ity and elegant taste which marked it in the days of 
the Medici. Commencing with a story of rustic work 
solid and severe enough for a fortress, the mansions 
of the old merchant princes rise with an easy largeness 
of style, through several gradations of finish, tiara'd at 
last by a Corinthian cornice of audacious breadth and 



268 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

exquisite design. The Strozzi and the Eiccardi par- 
ticularly are models of this austerely beautiful palatial 
architecture. 

Yet even under such stately walls my wayward im- 
agination refused to labor, and indolently went to sleep 
in the Capuan present, unregardful as any basking laz- 
zarone of the many pictures of history which it might 
have conjured out of the venerable names and presences 
of these monuments of mediaeval princeliness, but gloat- 
ing unweariedly on the masculine masses and multi- 
tudinous shadows of the rustic work, on the fine pro- 
gression of finish as the edifice rose from story to 
story, and on the daring yet graceful outspreading of 
the rich Corinthian cornice. 

The Campaniles of Italy are lofty and usually slen- 
der belfries, in some cases attached to the body of a 
church, but in general standing a little apart, like an 
angel who, with devout awe, sentinels some gate of 
Paradise. The Campanile of the Florentine Duomo 
is worthy of this comparison, for its majesty is marvel- 
ous, and its beauty almost spiritual in delicacy, while 
its bells seem like a seraph voice summoning earth at 
morn to labor, and at night to holy meditation. Only 
when their clamor burst forth by my side, as I stood 
in the dizzy gallery at the summit, did they convey to 
me an impression of pain and terror ; for then the pile 
appeared to shudder to its immense base under the 
power of that brazen passion, as if it trembled with the 
imprisoned agony of some mighty and condemned spir- 
it, reminding me of that Afrite in the Arabian Nights 
who was bound for uncounted years in an immeasur- 
able pillar, from the pinnacle of which he shrieked to 



ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 2G9 

the desert liis mighty crime and his astonishing pun- 
ishment. 

But in general the impression left upon me by the 
Campanile was that of the serenest and loveliest maj- 
esty. Its style is Gothic, but so softened in outline, 
so gentle in expression, that, for a time, you hardly no- 
tice its order of architecture. Simple in form, a mere 
quadrangular column, it is so delicately varied with 
arches, pillarings, and statues, so superbly enameled 
with many-colored marbles, that it fills the beholder 
with a rare impression of richness and costliness. It 
is worthy of the age which produced the Divine Come- 
dia. 

The Duomo, at least in its exterior, never moved me 
like its slender companion structure. Its unfinished 
front and its redundant ornament in the completed 
portions detract from the grand effect produced by the 
ponderous mass of the building and its daring dome. 
But the interior, with its large spaces and stern sim- 
plicity, was always imposing; not in the hours of 
service alone, when multitudes kneeled in the sublim- 
ity of numbers before a spangled splendor of worship, 
but more particularly august in the desertion of twi- 
light, when the shadows of the colonnades began to 
mingle with the gloom of the hour itself, as the traces 
of every purpose and desire within the human heart 
finally disappear in the mystery of death. 

The church of Santa Croce will remain longer in 
my memory for the magic of a sunset which found 
me within its walls. A tender light fell through 
the lofty windows, filling the dimness of the edifice 
with a glory which was both sweet and very mourn- 



270 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

ful. I stood before the tomb of Michael Angelo when 
I first became aware of the unearthliness of the scene 
and the hour. Above me was the bust of the great 
master, beside which, contemplating his mausoleum, 
sat the three sisters who loved him, Painting, Sculp- 
ture, and Architecture. Upon the faces of the statues 
the sunset had poured the very soul of art, represent- 
ing there a sorrow beyond the expressibilities of mar- 
ble, a grief human yet most spiritual, resigned yet 
which no words could have spoken ; an affliction grow- 
ing ever more comfortless as the twilight deepened 
over the sculptured visages, until, at last, each sister 
seemed ready to veil her head, and all night remain 
covered in memory of her irreparable bereavement. 

In the Via Calzaiuoli of Florence, midway between 
the Piazza Gran-Duca and the Piazza of the Duomo, 
rises the tower-like church of Or San Michele. In a 
niche of the exterior wall, shielded from the rain by a 
marble canopy, stands a warrior with bare head, but 
otherwise in complete armor. With one mailed hand 
upon his shield, with one foot advanced as if in defi- 
ance of pagan and infidel, he rests an everlasting sen- 
tinel, significant that the Church is yet militant, and 
that there is no discharge in that war which he has 
undertaken. Multitudes walk before him by day on 
the errands of peaceful labor, or wander near him by 
night chanting the songs of worldly mirth, but he rec- 
ognizes no companionship with them, and gazes pas- 
sionately on something invisible to their eyes with a 
fixed concentration of devout purpose, an unregarding 
scorn of whatever is merely temporal, and an ineffable 
hatred of whatever, temporal or eternal, is evil. You 



ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 271 

would expect to see this warrior leap clanging from 
his post, and fulfill immediately his martial yet holy 
mission, were it not that he is only of marble. It is 
the St. George of Donatello, the statue before which 
Michael Angelo used to stand in wonder, and to which 
he cried "March!" in the thrill of his artistic sympa- 
thy. Its form is rude compared with some more an- 
cient and more modern statues, but its pose is noble, 
and its expression is more than human. 

Of Michael Angelo himself there stands in the Pi- 
azza Gran-Duca one memorial, the statue of David, 
colossal by measurement, and equally so by its grand- 
eur of feeling. It rests on one leg, in easy confidence 
of success ; its head is turned with a beautiful scorn 
to look at the approaching enemy ; although the battle 
is yet to come, triumph already glorifies its forehead. 
A wonderful symbol of everlasting and heroic youth, 
it seemed to me also like an embodiment of Liberty, 
standing forward, naked and with simple weapons, to 
encounter the mailed giant Despotism. 

No other colossal statue ever struck me as possess- 
ing the full nobleness of this. There are critics, in- 
deed, with brains made of foot-rules and compasses, 
who object that the hands are too big for the arms, the 
feet for the legs, and the head for the body. I reply, 
that in youth the extremities are always larger in re- 
lation to the other parts than when the frame has 
reached its full development ; and, even if it were not 
so, I observe the fierce, sublime soul of the statue, and 
forget every slight disproportion in the form which 
clothes it. 

Less heroic, more ethereal, the expression of agile 



272 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

grace stands, or almost soars, the Mercury of Giovan- 
ni di Bologna. With one foot barely touching the 
pedestal, with its confident brow turned toward heav- 
en, it reminds one of all swift and untrammeled things 
— of winds bounding over tree-tops, of sunlight dancing 
on the pinnacles of spires, of tireless clouds launching 
from the summits of mountains. Could there be any 
better statuesque representation of the elasticity and 
unweariableness of the true artist's imagination ? If 
it is not, as I think it, the finest of all Mercuries, ancient 
or modern, it is at least the chiefest glory of Giovanni 
di Bologna. 

Canova moved me to a sudden but transient admi- 
ration. His forms and groupings are extremely grace- 
ful, but he has nowhere produced, as it seems to me, a 
complete nobleness of expression. His beautiful Per- 
seus is too mere an echo of the Apollo Belvidere, and 
his female faces are disappointing by their insipidity. 

A greater and more original artist is the living Ko- 
man Tenerani, a disciple of the pure Thorwaldsen, but 
not bound to him by any link of slavish imitation ; a 
master of originality, of loveliness, of chastity in line, 
of holiness in feeling. In the church of San Giovanni 
Laterano, in the Torlonia chapel, I saw his Descent 
from the Cross. Simplicity of grouping, mournful 
tenderness of expression, sinless spirituality of senti- 
ment, have no diviner union in art. It reminded me 
of the seraphic sweetness far withdrawn from earth, the 
peace which passeth all understanding, which beam 
from the pictures of Fra Beato Angelico. 

In a chamber near the Palace Barberini in Eome I 
beheld an angel clothed in robes like the driven snow. 



ACQUAINTANCE IN STONE. 273 

Of gigantic stature, lie sat in an attitude of expectation 
on a white and glittering throne. In his hand he held 
a trumpet, ready to summon earth to judgment, and 
to declare that time should be no longer. His face 
was that of one who had seen all human and heaven- 
ly mysteries, yet was beautiful with the freshness of 
everlasting youth. It was the Angel of the Last Judg- 
ment of Tenerani. 

It will easily be guessed why I do not go on to call 
up gods and goddesses from the vasty deep of ancient 
art. That ocean is immeasurable to an ordinary pin- 
nace, and those shapes are terrible to an inexperienced 
mariner. 

I was disappointed in the nature of my emotions at 
Florence, but I was disappointed in their quantity at 
Eome. The Imperial City did not satisfy me, partly 
because during my stay it was clouded, inclement, and 
uncomfortable with winter, but chiefly because I an- 
ticipated most there some glorious spectral resurrection 
of the past, and there had most reason to complain of 
my imagination. I thought that under the Arch of 
Titus and on the Flaminian Way I should hear the 
tramp of legionaries. I expected on the Hill of the 
Capitol to see august shades pass by in consular robes. 
But arches and ways had none of the echoes for which 
I listened ; and, like most others, I found the Capi- 
toline vacant, except of tourists, guides, and beggars. 

I must speak thankfully, however, of some memo- 
rable visits which I was enabled to make to the Pan- 
theon. The same as in the days of the Ca3sars, and 
yet how changed ! still a temple, and yet with what a 
different worship ! It was this continuation of the an- 
M2 



274 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

cient sentiment of the building, contrasted with the 
immense variation in the direction of that sentiment, 
which startled me, and made me return many times to 
the Pantheon. 

One other classic hour was accorded to me under 
earth, wandering among the tombs of the Scipios. It 
was astonishing to stand before those rude memorial 
tablets, and read, as they were written in the elder 
days, the names of Publius, and Cneius, and Nasica. 
My modernism seemed to disappear before their solemn 
magic, and I became a countryman of the old patri- 
cians, a client perhaps, and at least a mourner at their 
graves. The original stones, indeed, had been removed 
to the Vatican, and their place supplied by imitations ; 
but, not knowing this fact at the time, I passed just as 
fine an hour. 



CONCLUSION. 275 



CONCLUSION. 

And here I might outpour an endless prattle 
About high art, and scenery, and song, 

Or heroes' graves, or fields of ancient battle, 
Or broken fanes which to old gods belong ; 

But I shall not ; my forte is tittle-tattle* 
Concerning living men, the motley throng 

Which greets the tourist's lazy observation 

In street, and shop, and coach, and railway station. 

I threaded Pompeii in wordless wonder, 
Its temples, theatres, and rutted ways, 

Exactly as Vesuvius's judgment thunder 

Had flung them from antique to modern days ; 

But I received a caution not to blunder 
Into a long account of my surveys ; 

For, standing by an altar, with his fingers 

Upon his lips, the God of Silence lingers. 

I understood him, and so leave the story 
Of Pompeii in Bulwer Lytton's hand ; 

I pass with equal self-command the hoary 
Solemnity of Pestum, lonely-grand, 

Although to me it wore the finest glory 
Of any ruin in Italic land : 

A massive glory, Greek — yea, Magna Grecian, 

Which Remus might have seen in full completion. 

My right as tourist to the population 

Of gods and muses in the Vatican, 
To all the picture-galleries in creation, 

To every monument yet built by man, 
To all the glaciers of the Switzer nation, 

To holy spots from Beersheba to Dan, 
To Lago Como and the Milan Duomo, 
I here resign to any other homo. 



276 EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE. 

Resigning, too, my pen, I stop this babble 
Respecting my acquaintance and myself; 

For though, perhaps, an interesting rabble, 
The theme is spent: I lay it on the shelf; 

Sadly uncertain if my pribble-prabble 
Will bring me notoriety or pelf, 

But pretty sure at least of being printed, 

As several bookish friends have kindly hinted. 



THE END. 



3477-3X 



